Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I congratulate her on finding a relatively unexplored but vital angle on the issue. Although she said “could”, not “will” many times, I note that she also said “must” many times, and I hope that the Minister will take account of that.

It is also a pleasure to speak in this debate, for it is not like other debates on Article 50. For more than two years, we have been told repeatedly that the UK is leaving the EU on 29 March 2019. In the other place, the honourable Member for Wellingborough, who keeps tabs on this sort of thing, calculates that the Prime Minister has issued this declaration 108 times. My noble friend must have come quite close to that total. I was going to ask him if, just this once, he could bring himself to utter the words, “The UK may not be leaving the EU on 29 March 2019”, but I sympathise with his Brexit throat issue, so I wonder whether my noble and learned friend Lord Keen might utter that sentence for the general delectation of the House.

There is, however, no reason for sanguinity. Despite what was said yesterday, the possibility of leaving the EU without a deal remains real—merely potentially postponed. If anyone really believes that leaving without a deal would not be a disaster for our country, they need only to read the document produced yesterday by the Government—not, one might think, a bad day to bury bad news—which has been mentioned several times in the House already. The grim forecasts for the economy in there are eye-popping. It could shrink by 9% on average and 10.5% in the north-east. Between the first quarter of 2008 and that almighty financial crash and the second quarter of 2009, the economy shrank by just 6%. Just think of the many years of austerity it took to finish that. We are talking about a much worse situation and potentially walking right into it of our own volition.

The costs of a no-deal Brexit are literally horrendous. HMRC estimates that the burden on business from customs declarations alone, based on 2016 UK-EU trade in goods, could be around £13 billion a year. I am really sorry that my noble friend Lord Lilley is not in his place to put that £13 billion in context with the £10 billion—it is not really £10 billion—that he feels we might be saving. According to HMRC, that is without,

“accounting for any behavioural change”,

which is HMRC-speak for companies just stopping exporting because it is too much trouble.

Business is simply not ready for no deal. Only 40,000 of the 240,000 businesses that currently export to the EU have even applied for the necessary licences. Apparently HMRC is capable of issuing them at the rate of 11,000 a day, so there is no way they are all going to get their licences for 29 March—and probably not for two months later. Can the Minister tell the House whether he thinks all this trouble is truly worth while. The Government tell us there will need to be import tariffs; of course there will. The document tells us:

“Further details will be announced in due course”.


I wonder whether the Minister could tell us in due course when that might be. The boats are already having to get loaded up with the items to be exported. Indeed, some of those boats have already set off.

We know trade deals have not been signed. The no-deal briefing tells us that certain deals will categorically not be in place for exit day. For some reason, the ones it singles out are,

“Andorra, Japan, Turkey, and San Marino”,

as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, remarked. Quite why Japan and San Marino are viewed in the same way by our Government I cannot imagine. I ask the Minister whether, when these trade deals are put in place, Parliament will have a proper opportunity to scrutinise them. Not all of us may be as terrified of chlorinated chicken as some, but we ought to be able to have parliamentary scrutiny of the trade deals to which we are thinking of signing up.

It is already clear that shop prices are going up, but figures from the ONS only today show that last year the poorest 20% in this country saw their real incomes fall by 1.6%. They are already finding life a real struggle, and as shop prices go up they will find it harder and harder.

As my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, said, this is not just about the economy. There is far more at stake, and many of us believe that the UK is better off from every point of view—not just financial but in terms of culture and security—as part of the EU. That is why I listened with interest to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and took note of the four elements he saw as the temptations—but I am afraid I cannot agree with him in his call for compromise. I find it absolutely appalling to be asked to take our country into a situation that I believe will make us worse off in every way. I will not refer to Churchill but to GK Chesterton, who said that compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen, it really seems to me that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf. I want the country to have the whole loaf.