European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Noakes Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I was a member of the committee to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred when he mentioned the evidence on this issue. Week after week we heard witnesses from the transport industries giving evidence, and they presented a pretty united picture. Not one of them bounced in and said, “No, it’s all right, we’ll cope; we aren’t worried.” They were all worried and they were all frustrated. Of course, they will do their best to cope, but many of them genuinely fear that their businesses will go to the wall in the process.

Transport of one sort or another has been the subject of a lot of discussion and controversy throughout the Brexit debate. This is a comprehensive amendment which includes references to passengers, freight, roads, rail, air and sea. All of these are currently governed by a mass of different rules and agreements. Some of the agreements are with the EU and some are international treaties, but we are a member of those treaties solely as a member of the EU. Therefore, our position has to be renegotiated as we leave. All of this has to be unravelled and reconstructed if our transport system is to flow smoothly. It will never flow as easily after we leave the EU, because the Government have set their face against the close trading relationship needed for it to do so. However, they can still do things to paper over the cracks.

It is important to recognise the size of the problem. The prosperity of our economy rests on the shoulders of our transport system. Much of that involves foreign trade and the movement of people between countries, but even parts of the economy that are purely internal are to a varying extent affected by problems in the international movement of goods and people. To give one example, any delay to the ports in Kent has a huge knock-on effect not just on the motorways but on the towns and villages of Kent as a whole, and has an impact directly on its internal economy.

Now we have the added factor of the border down the Irish Sea. I have spoken repeatedly in this Chamber about the impact that this would have on Wales—for example on the port of Holyhead, which is badly unprepared to deal with long queues of traffic simply because of where it is situated—and on the farming industry in Wales as a whole. Transport-related problems are not confined to the impact of increased bureaucracy, to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred, nor to more complex border arrangements and the delays they might produce. They are also caused by the steady departure of EU nationals. This industry has a very high percentage of such employees, and their departure will also cause recruitment issues.

I draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that many of the early arrangements we made as a country with the EU in preparation for this are now badly out of date. Indeed, I remember sitting opposite the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, when she was the Minister, discussing whether the dates matched for the interim arrangements that had been reached. So all these now need to be updated. They took us a long time in the first place—many hours of work went into them—but they must be looked at again, and it would be very useful for this House to know how well the Government are getting on with that.

The Government have been relatively keen to maintain our membership of aviation-related treaties but have been much more limited in how they have approached, for instance, links with our current EU partners on the railways. They have wanted agreement only with our immediate neighbours. Is that still their position?

The Government have gradually woken up to the general issues and concerns, especially in relation to freight and ports. A great deal of money has been spent on an emergency infrastructure in Kent. Of course, a lot of that money was wasted because it led to previous dates for departure from the EU that did not come to anything. Then there is of course the famous ferry company with no ferries.

I see that the Government are now trying to reclaim some of the £10 million that they gave to this industry and others to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. That displays the Government’s confusion on all this, because the Prime Minister continues to threaten that if there is no trade deal this year there will still be a no-deal Brexit. Everyone I talk to or listen to who has any knowledge of the complexity of a trade deal says of course that it is a highly likely event, because it is virtually impossible to get an agreement by the end of the year.

The transport industry remains seriously concerned. It grapples with uncertainty and complexity. I argue that this issue is so fundamental that it deserves the spotlight and the report that the amendment suggests. It is about a great deal more than whether we will all need two different sorts of international driving permit. It is that kind of thing that will have a huge impact on the general public, but it is the complexity of all the other issues that will have a major impact on how our goods are carried to and fro, and with what efficiency.

The amendment is designed to impose on the Government an obligation to work for the smoothest possible trade arrangements going forward. I hope that the Government have no problem in accepting that principle; but I also hope that they accept that Parliament should have the opportunity to assess progress. I believe, and I have always believed, that it is not until we get the impact on our transport arrangements across the board that people in Britain will realise the size of the change coming to us.

I hope that the Government can accept the amendment. If they cannot, I hope that they will work toward agreeing something along similar lines that will impose similar obligations on them to give updates on progress as they move forward with agreements on transport.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, I served on the EU sub-committee, led very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and took part in the preparation of the report to which the noble Lord referred.

It was very clear from the evidence we received in that committee that some serious issues remain to be resolved. In particular, I single out road haulage, with the issue of permitting. Not all the other sectors present the same degree of difficulty. However, in that committee we took evidence from the Minister in the Department for Transport. While there were no definitive answers, because at that time last year there was a range of possible Brexit outcomes, it is fair to say that the Minister demonstrated a full grasp of the issues involved. I have confidence that the Government are aware of the issues and know what needs to be addressed in order for there to be a successful outcome for all aspects of transport post Brexit: that is, post the implementation period, in effect, so this is not a burning-platform issue.

I cannot support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, because I do not think that reports to Parliament are a particularly useful mechanism, especially in the context of what I believe was relatively clear evidence at the time that the Government were aware of the issues and determined to address them. I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s response and hope that she will be able to demonstrate to the House that the Government are indeed aware of the issues and committed to finding practical solutions to them.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

I do not normally have sympathy for the Government Front Bench, but I, like the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, took part in many hours of, broadly speaking, good-natured debates preparing for a no-deal exit. That very action revealed to us the sheer complexity required to make international transport systems work effectively. We were dependent on what we could do for ourselves, because we were in no way able to demand reciprocal action from the EU. Indeed, the EU saw the sheer risks of a no-deal exit and in fact came some way towards providing interim arrangements. Those interim arrangements do not now exist. It is possible that they will emerge between now and the end of December, but given the sheer effort required to do these complex deals, where somehow it is subtly acceptable with our European friends but is not actually like Europe—roughly speaking, that is what the Government are saying—I fear it is impossible.

I do not want to leave the European Union. Most of the House before the election did not want to leave the European Union and probably does not now, but with the odd exception there is virtually acceptance in this House that we have to get Brexit done. We may not like it, but we accept it. However, the sheer practical difficulties the Government face are terrifying.

It also happens that they have picked the worst date of the year. I had a crisis when a permit to operate ran out on 31 December; the alternative was to stop London on 1 January. It was pretty terrifying, because Christmas happens all over the place. Frankly, the end of December is the 22nd if you are lucky. The problem is that everybody else thinks the end of December is the 31st. It turns out that it is not. People are not there—senior people to make decisions and last-minute scrambles, which are what deadlines produce. It becomes utterly chaotic. Anyway, we survived and London did not stop, but it got incredibly close.

During consideration of the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Act, we debated the concerns of the freight industry at length. That industry is key to our trading with the EU 27, with millions of road goods vehicles travelling from Britain to the European mainland each year.

Since the passage of the Act, as part of its preparations for a no-deal exit, the Department for Transport began allocating permits via a lottery system, a system that was to be a fallback. Inevitably, because it is so overwhelmed, that became the main allocator. Figures show that less than 1,000 of more than 11,000 HGV operators' applications for annual permits were successful. With a deal now in place and a time-limited transition period running to the end of December, hauliers, drivers and users of other transport modes will be able to continue largely as normal.

However, as with other topics debated in recent days, there is no certainty about the post-December 2020 picture. Indeed, with the Government imposing hard deadlines for a new trade deal, transport operators face a renewed threat of suboptimal contingency measures. I lived in the transport industry. The lead time simply to have the right people in the right places to load the trains, drive the trains, fly the aeroplanes takes weeks and months. If you do not know what you are going to do in an industry that is so integrated, chaos reigns.

I welcome my noble friend Lord Whitty’s amendment and look forward to the Minister providing more up-to-date information. We have had precious little detail from the Government on their plans for future UK-EU transport arrangements, and while we accept that this will be subject to negotiation, I hope the Minister can indicate the type of arrangements that we will be seeking, and that the Government are successful.