Beyond Brexit: Institutional Framework (EUC Report)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and to reassure him, or perhaps apologise to him, that this time I am not intending to tweet a video of his speech. That does not reflect a lack of importance in today’s debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, said, this is crucial to the well-being of all Britons, and perhaps particularly to those in some of the poorer areas of the country often subjected to the Government’s “levelling-up” rhetoric.

It is worth while going back a year to the ratification of the TCA by Parliament. The Institute for Government criticised the measly one day allocated to scrutinising the agreement. It also noted how the short time between ratification and implementation made it difficult for firms, particularly small firms. The Institute of Directors said:

“On the guidance … there were reams of it coming quite late in the day”.


A year on, it is worth asking: how much better off are we? We are now in this rather small Room, with an extremely distinguished panel participating. It is perhaps not the centre of the House’s attention, let alone the country’s, yet scrutinising what is happening is absolutely crucial.

There is an enormous amount of detail here. I will just pick out some points from each of these three reports. The Government’s responses to them all, which I will focus on, often stray towards the perfunctory, with phrases such as “world leading”, which sadly we are all too familiar with. I pick out the same point as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in the response to the report on the institutional framework, which was so formidably introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. The Government say:

“We are confident there will be the necessary regular political level engagement both with the EU institutions and bilaterally with the Member States at all levels.”


I have a direct question for the Minister: is he pleased? What adjective would he use to describe the contents, volume and results of contact with EU institutions and, bilaterally, with Ministers and officials in EU states?

I move on to the trade in services report. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, talked about minor acts of mitigation on many of the issues that it covers. I will pick up on just two such areas of particular interest, which I have pursued very much over the past year, one about creative industries and the other about the loss of Erasmus+ and the inadequacy of the replacement, the Turing scheme. In the Government’s response on the crucial issues around haulage, cabotage and carnets, they say that

“the Department for Transport is looking at possible steps to support UK specialist hauliers”.

As many noble Lords have noted, Covid has been an additional, massive barrier, and has somewhat frozen the whole situation. We hope, at least, that we are coming to the point of this being unfrozen. What steps are the Government planning to support hauliers and the creative industries generally? I note again that the government response says:

“It is important that businesses and individuals confirm the processes in advance of their journey.”


That sentence stresses the difficulties faced by the creative sector, both artists and businesses that work to support them.

On the Turing scheme, the Government’s response talks about how Turing is only for outward mobility, and about relationships with individual institutions. Heidelberg University in Germany, the Sorbonne in France and many institutions across the Commonwealth are mentioned. Does the Minister acknowledge that the universities, which have also had so many pressures in the age of Covid, are facing enormous pressures if they have to build up one-to-one relationships? Are the Government working to make that easier?

Finally, I come on to the trade in goods. Here, the Government response again talked about the difficulties, as the committee did, for small and medium-sized enterprises. I want to point the Minister to the report from the Federation of Small Businesses, which came out just a few days ago and noted that only a quarter of small companies believe that they are ready for the new border checks that will come in in January. These include import customs declarations for EU goods; the companies will have to make those declarations and pay those relevant tariffs at the point of import. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, when it comes to food, drinks and products of animal origin, they will have to give notice in advance. Can the Minister tell me whether he is confident that we will be ready for this yet further change?

I want to conclude with some brief reflections on the position of trade in general. I come to this debate with a different position from that of most other noble Lords, because I do not go “Yay—trade! More trade!” What I am interested in is the well-being of the people of the UK and of the planet, and the well-being of the planet. The Government often seem to be trying to push trade with other parts of the world while supporting free trade agreements—which are of great concern, particularly to our farmers—at great cost to the environment and to existing businesses. New Zealand is looking to operate through the living standards framework in all the decisions made by its Treasury and its other bodies. In the other place last week, the Green MP Caroline Lucas had a debate in which she talked about a well-being economy. I wonder if the Minister has given thought to the idea of well-being trade: trade that is not a win for us at the cost of someone else, but a benefit to people operating within the physical limits of this one fragile planet.