Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

With enormous respect to the Minister, the problem with his Government’s approach is the fact that they do not indicate what they have got with that spending. As I said, £4.4 billion has been spent on preparedness for Brexit and for the end of the transition period, and the £80 million that he refers to, but there is no indication from the Government of how many additional customs officers we have received as a result of that spending. I hoped that he was intervening on me to provide an indication of the additional workforce that has been recruited. It is a matter of regret that he was unable to do so.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is quite rightly querying how money has been spent. I do not know whether she has had letters from the Government asking MPs, as small businesses, to get ready for Brexit. I got two of them, including one that referred to me as an MSP, so perhaps the Government are not spending their money particularly wisely or accurately.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that very relevant point. I am sure that it is not only Opposition Members but Government Members who have had many businesses contacting them, often in despair, about the communications and advertisements asking them to get ready when there is so little indication of what they have to get ready for.

Yesterday morning, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee heard from the Food and Drink Federation, which said that the guidance being published now was already too late. Some 43% of its members who supply Northern Ireland have said that they will not do so in the first three months of next year. That is desperately worrying. TheCityUK said that in the worst-case scenario, 40% of the UK’s EU-related financial activity could be lost. Every day between now and the end of the year counts to get a deal, and failing that, to plan for the no-deal outcome that the Prime Minister himself conceded would represent a failure of statecraft.

With that in mind, Labour supports this Bill passing. Labour is a responsible Opposition, and we are determined to see the minimum disruption possible, but we cannot support such continued lack of clarity on critical issues. When businesses need clarity as a matter of urgency, it is not good enough to state that further guidance will be forthcoming. At the very least, they need a timetable for the provision of that greater certainty. They need to know what rules of origin will apply from 1 January. The continued lack of clarity could create unprecedented new costs. They need to know when appropriate tariff codes will be published. They need to know whether the Government will be providing easements, and they need to know these things in concrete terms, not through the winks and nudges that have substituted for clarity so far.

Businesses need to know whether there will be a pause in penalties arising out of this legislation and, if so, what would be done to counterbalance that and prevent wilful avoidance. They need to know whether the measures in the Bill countermand the existing guidance provided to Northern Irish businesses, some of which was updated just on 7 December. They need to know, as revealed in The Irish Times, whether and when the information on the trusted trader scheme for Northern Irish business—details of which have allegedly been coming out of internal communications —is going to be fully published, so that businesses can follow that scheme.

I want to end my contribution by asking the Minister to place himself in the shoes of a small manufacturing company. We have many excellent such companies across the United Kingdom—in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. Companies will already have faced enormous challenges during this period because of covid. Potentially, they have staff off because they have to self-isolate. Potentially, there is continuing uncertainty about the future of furlough because of this Government’s unwillingness to provide that certainty. Potentially, they were counting on the job retention bonus, but they are not going to receive it. They are now trying to plan which members of staff they will need to have in the company at work to get ready for 1 January. The stress and strain are immense.

The Minister and his Government must do all they can to overcome those uncertainties and help businesses to plan. That is the least they can do for businesses and the people who work for them, who have had such a hard year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The way this Bill has been brought to the House today, less than 24 hours since it was published yesterday, really shows the disrespect the Government have for Parliament and for all of us here today. It is unacceptable that the UK Government are coming so late in the day with these proposals and are blatantly using them as a form of leverage in their negotiations.

The proposals before us today will impact on the daily lives of residents in Northern Ireland and of businesses more widely. I have concerns, not least from what the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has just said, that the clauses being taken out could easily be put back in again—if not by him, then by the Government themselves. We have no certainty over that because of the way they have conducted these negotiations.

As MPs, we do not have adequate time to scrutinise what is in front of us this afternoon. Businesses and stakeholders have also been excluded from the process and they are, of course, those who will feel the impact the most. It is typical of the slapdash, chaotic way the UK Government do things, but I would like very much to put on record my dismay and regret at this shambles. I would also like to say that, while I have huge sympathy for those who have worked on the drafting on the Bill, it would not be the first Bill that has come back with errors and drafting issues because it has been prepared in haste. We have also seen that with some of the financial services statutory instruments that have gone through. I am very concerned that this has been done so hastily that we will not find out what the errors are until the UK Government come back to fix them later.

The Northern Ireland provisions have huge complexity and give significant powers to the Treasury to define in regulations the goods that are “at risk” of being moved into the EU. The Minister confirmed yesterday that we do not know exactly what those at-risk goods are, which causes huge uncertainty for those moving goods in and out of Northern Ireland. As the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) said, that has a chilling effect on businesses that want to transact their business as normal, but just do not know what it is that they are being expected to prepare for.

The letter that we received earlier from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury confirms that changes to the regulations will be made under the negative procedure, so this House will have no ability to further scrutinise them. The same is true of Stormont and it is crucial that we hear Stormont’s views on these regulations and the effect of them.

“Take back control,” this Government said. Well, it seems that most of the control is either going to the Treasury or to officers in HMRC. All these regulations are being put forward in such a way as to remove scrutiny and to remove control. Throughout the letter that we received earlier from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, references were made to the use of the negative procedure and, curiously, to powers that there are no plans for the Government to use. It may not be the plan now to use them, but even the best laid plans gang aft agley, as happens so often and so wildly with this Government. How will the scrutiny work should the Government decide to make these changes? Lots of powers are being hived off, as we can well see. The amendment tabled in my name and the names of my colleagues attempts to redress some of the democratic deficit in the way that the Government are conducting themselves.

The affirmative procedure, as with many procedures in this place, is not perfect by any means, but at the very least this would make the UK Government come to this House to explain the reasons for their actions and to be scrutinised on their thinking, rather than just making changes that will make a real difference to the lives and livelihoods of people across these islands and more widely. Changes should not just go through on the nod.

The withdrawal agreement has the consent mechanism for Stormont, which will kick in only at the end of 2024. The UK Government must explain how their engagement will operate on all the mechanisms between then and now. This matter is horribly complicated and my sympathies are with all those who have to operate under these very difficult circumstances. So much of the uncertainty is also swathed in huge amounts of red tape. The red tape that the Brexiteers claimed they were going to remove will now be wrapped around Northern Ireland.

I received very little by way of reassurance from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in his statement and his responses to Members earlier today. Too much is uncertain, and a lot of it is mince. The derogation in chilled meat, sausages, mince and unfrozen prepared meals is one such aspect. [Laughter.] Keep up, keep up! RTÉ’s Tony Connelly notes that when the as-yet-to-be-determined derogation period expires, supermarkets in Northern Ireland will need to source products locally or from the Republic of Ireland. That may well be good for those producers and good luck to them, but a clear competitive disadvantage is being placed on food exporters in Scotland, Wales and England and that cannot be justified by the Government.

The trusted trader scheme itself is subject to review three and a half years after the Northern Ireland protocol begins, but what mechanisms exist to hold it to account in the meantime to ensure that it is effective and that it does not have a distorting effect, which we suspect that it may do? What is in place now to ensure that there is not a further panic in a couple of months’ time due to a lack of qualified staff to carry out checks for export health certificates? Given the propensity of this Government to hand in their homework late if the dog has not already eaten it, what concrete assurances can they give?

I turn now to enforcement. The Prime Minister could not answer the question earlier from the Leader of the Opposition on the existence, or otherwise, of 50,000 customs agents, and the Minister today could not answer the same question from the hon. Member for Oxford East. I want to know a bit more about these customs agents. Where are they? How many of them are there? Will they be prioritised for the big ports in the UK, or will the Government run the risk of leaving the door open to smuggling and tax-dodging via the short straits? As the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) mentioned earlier, there is a risk of criminality as well as just of error.

What assessment have the Government made of the competitiveness of our export businesses with reference to schedule 3 of the Bill? If customs charges now apply, surely it will make it more difficult for people to export as well as to import? This is a general concern that has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) on multiple occasions. It presents an extra hassle for small businesses as well as an extra unanticipated expense for consumers. I give the House a small example. I ordered a necklace some time ago from the United States and when it arrived a huge customs charge was slapped on it. Had I known about it before I had ordered it, I might not have ordered it, given the scale of the charge. Consumers do not know what they will end up with if they order something online. When we see something online, we see what the price of it is and what the postage is, but we do not see that customs charge, which is really not transparent. The earrings that I am wearing today are from a small business based in Slovenia, which was able to send them with no additional charges because we were a member of the European Union. Some 70% of Irish online purchases come from the UK. I want to know from the Minister what the impact of the changes will be on our own businesses that wish to export to the Irish Republic.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes an almost persuasive case about the difficulty of fragmenting a customs union that has been in place for only 40 years or so. How much more difficult would it be to fragment the United Kingdom, a customs union that has been in place for centuries?

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good attempt there, but the issue is really the UK Government and their incompetence in dealing with all these issues, which could well have been anticipated, as well as in taking us out of the large trading bloc on our doorstep from which we have benefited for 40 years and from which our businesses have been able to export their goods. We in Scotland have been able to export our food and drink very easily, very simply and without any barriers. These are barriers that the UK Government wish to put in place—and if they wish to put them in place with an independent Scotland, that is their choice, not ours.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I have almost finished, so I want to make a little progress, but I will try to bring the hon. Lady in later.

I am curious about what assessment the Government have made of the chilling effect of these changes. It is also very interesting that the customs duties will benefit the Irish Exchequer and be to the detriment of our people who wish to export. I note that paragraph 12 of schedule 1 will amend the Isle of Man Act 1979, and that part 6 of new schedule 9ZB to the Value Added Tax Act 1994, which is inserted by schedule 2, also relates to the Isle of Man, so I would be grateful if the Government told us what communication they have had with the Manx authorities on the proposals. Obviously those proposals have come out overnight, so I do not know what discussions have been had, but it would be very interesting to find out.

Scotland has not been offered the deal that Northern Ireland has been offered. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury spoke about the benefits of the EU single market that people in Northern Ireland will enjoy. Lucky them. Scotland is the only part of this supposed Union of equals not to get any of what we asked for, and we will see our own industries disadvantaged. To add insult to our very evident injury, Baroness Davidson and the then Scottish Secretary, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), threatened to resign if Northern Ireland was given different treatment. Just a couple of years ago, they said:

“Having fought just four years ago to keep our country together, the integrity of our United Kingdom remains the single most important issue for us in these negotiations.

Any deal that delivers a differentiated settlement for Northern Ireland beyond the differences that already exist on an all Ireland basis (eg agriculture), or can be brought under the provisions of the Belfast Agreement, would undermine the integrity of our UK internal market and this United Kingdom…We could not support any deal that…leads to Northern Ireland having a different relationship with the EU than the rest of the UK, beyond what currently exists.”

Well, that is exactly what we have. It is exactly what the Bill is and what it does, yet those two Members are still about. The Scottish Conservatives really do have more faces than the town clock.

To move on to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he has an absolute brass neck to describe the situation in Northern Ireland as the “best of both worlds”. He said on ITV that Northern Ireland would have

“access to the European single market, because there is no infrastructure on the island of Ireland, and at the same time unfettered access to the rest of the UK market.”

“The best of both worlds”—in Scotland, we have heard that before. The Better Together campaign told us that the only risk of losing our place in the EU was if Scotland voted for independence. Where are we now?

The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill farce undermines yet further the integrity of this crumbling Union, and today’s Bill takes another sledgehammer to the support structures that this Government believe are stronger than they are. The people of Scotland—those who voted no as well as those who voted yes, and those who were unable to vote six years ago—have been watching what has been going on. They do not want a UK Government who drag Scotland out of the EU—they voted very clearly, by 62%, to remain—they do not want a UK Government who threaten to break international law and spoil our standing in the world, and they do not want a UK Government to force Scotland into an insular and poorer future. People want their chance to have their say. The 15 polls in a row that now back independence show clearly to me and everybody else that the people of Scotland believe that things have changed. As Winnie Ewing said:

“Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on.”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Members should be aiming to speak for not much longer than four minutes, if we are to get everybody in. I call Sir John Redwood.