European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Vicky Ford

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I know exactly what the Secretary of State said. In the following sentence, he said this would happen unless

“politics gets in the way.”

Clearly, politics has got in the way, but it is not the only thing. Yesterday, reality got in the way, with the release of the Attorney General’s written advice to Cabinet. The implications of this legal advice are that we could be locked into a position where the EU negotiates a new trade in goods agreement that might be beneficial for the EU but deeply disadvantageous to the UK. This could be a deal where we have no say in the negotiations but where the UK could be obliged to open up our markets, perhaps to the United States of America, without any reciprocal right of access for UK manufacturers into that US market. I know the Secretary of State will have reflected carefully on that outcome. In fact, earlier this year in his Bloomberg speech, he presaged just such a situation. He said:

“As rule takers, without any say in how the rules were made, we would be in a worse position than we are today. It would be a complete sell out of Britain’s national interests and a betrayal of the voters in the referendum.”

But in a few minutes, he will stand at that Dispatch Box and urge hon. Members from across the House to vote for it. I can only admire his flexibility.

So how did this mess come about? The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), excoriated the Government for their failure to prepare. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) focused on the rigidity of the Prime Minister’s red lines. Perhaps the most serious error, though, was, as my hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen) said, to try to exclude Parliament from the process. The Government tried to exclude us on the triggering of article 50, on the impact assessments, on the right to a meaningful vote on the deal and on the financial modelling, and of course we argued that Parliament had the right to see the full legal opinion prepared by the Attorney General. Their refusal was a blunder that resulted in an achievement unique in a thousand years of our history: a Government being held to be in contempt of their own Parliament—ironic, given that Brexit was supposed to be about the sovereignty of this Parliament.

It is hardly surprising, then, that now that the Prime Minister has finally brought her deal back to the House of Commons, it is a deal that Members on both sides believe is not in the best interests of the country. She used to say, “No deal is better than a bad deal”; now the motto seems to be, “Any deal is better than no deal.” In fact, the Prime Minister’s deal is not actually a single deal at all: it is a package, in which there is one deal with binding commitments by the UK on the things that the EU demanded that we settled before we leave—money, citizens’ rights and the Irish border—and another proposed deal, which contains only a wish list, with no binding commitments on the EU on all the things that the UK would like in terms of our future political, trading and security relationship. Both are packaged up with the transition period, during which the real final deal is supposed to be negotiated.

People have called it a blind Brexit, because we are unable to see what we will get before we leave the EU on 29 March, by which time we will have lost all further leverage. After President Macron’s comments, is there anyone present in the Chamber who thinks that it is mere coincidence that the final date to extend the transition period and avoid the backstop is exactly the same date as that for the ratification of an agreement on access to our waters and fisheries quota shares?

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) pointed out that, although the Government say that the technology to avoid a hard border does not currently exist, in a staggering act of faith, they believe that it will be possible to achieve that by December 2020, when the transition period comes to an end. If the future relationship is not agreed by that date, the UK is faced with a stark choice: pay billions of pounds to extend the transition, or enter into the trade purgatory of the backstop arrangement.

Forty years of harmonisation of standards and regulations has resulted in UK companies being deeply embedded in complex supply chains. In the past few months, I have visited factories in all sectors. I have been to the ceramics factories about which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) spoke so powerfully when he told the House about the unions that he met and their fight. They are stressing that we must not have no deal, while not exactly being enamoured of the one that is on offer.

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

The automotive sector—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady will understand that the purpose of summing up at the end of the day is to respond to all the comments, including hers, that have been made during the debate. That is what I will try to do.

I visited the automotive sector with my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith). I spoke to the management, the unions and the workers. Their sector represents £18 billion-worth of exports to the EU. It has benefited enormously from our EU membership, and particularly from the customs union, which has allowed companies to streamline their supply chains and employ just-in-time systems.

I am not a pessimist about the future of our country. I do not say that the UK will be poorer if we accept the Prime Minister’s deal. But I do say, with the support of both the Treasury and the Bank of England, that it will be much poorer than we otherwise would be, by approximately 4% of GDP. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) spoke with clarity and passion about the differential impact that this would have on the poorest people and on the forgotten regions of our country, which need infrastructure investment.

Let us examine the potential upside: the new free trade agreement that the Secretary of State is so keen for us to do, particularly with our single largest bilateral trading partner, the United States. We have a trade surplus with the USA—a trade surplus that President Trump is determined to overturn. Last week, he suggested that a deal may now no longer be possible because of the way in which this deal proposes to align with the EU. President Trump made it clear that any trade agreement would involve aligning with American regulations and standards. Yes, of course, that means chlorine washed chicken, but it also means the US “Defect Levels Handbook”, which specifies the level of mice droppings or rat hairs that are permitted in our food—for example, 11 rodent hairs per 50 grams of cinnamon and 20 maggots per 100 grams of drained mushrooms. If anyone in this Chamber doubts it, they can read the handbook for themselves or they can see what is proposed by reading “Plan A+” launched by the original Brexit Secretary and by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees- Mogg) just recently. It proposes to remove parity-pay for posted workers; end limits on the hours that people can be asked to work; end the precautionary principle; say yes to pesticide residues and yes to hormone-disrupting chemicals in genetically modified organisms. Such regulatory divergence from the EU would substantially impact our ability to trade with our biggest, closest market. It would increase the risk profile—

Draft EU-Canada Trade Agreement Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I would give way to a Labour colleague.

Just last week, the incoming Italian Government signalled that they too would refuse to ratify CETA when the new Agriculture Minister indicated that the lack of protections for Italian food producers presented a serious threat to the sector, calling the deal wrong and risky. France, Germany and the Netherlands have not ratified the agreement, and the Dutch Government are waiting on the ECJ ruling before determining how to proceed. In Germany, the issue is being heard in a case before its domestic constitutional courts to determine whether the investment court system is even compatible with the German constitution.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point but, if CETA is such a terrible deal, why did so many Labour Members of the European Parliament vote for it, including their lead spokesman on the issue, who had full transparency on the deal as it was negotiated?

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Lady makes a false premise. Many parts of this deal would be welcomed, but there are essential parts of it that cannot be welcomed and which would stop us, therefore, being able to ratify it in the way she suggests.

The ISDS mechanisms give superior legal rights only to foreign investors to raise disputes against our Government to petition for compensation when their profits, or even their potential profits, are impacted by legislative or public policy decisions. This effectively allows companies to sue Governments when they are legislating in the public interest; for example, by introducing plain packaging for cigarettes, national insurance, minimum wages or even banning fracking. These provisions have become increasingly commonplace in new-generation trade agreements and this is what has resulted in such widespread international public outcry against deals such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and CETA.

The proliferation of investor-state dispute settlements can encourage treaty shopping, whereby investors restructure their activities to establish in countries where they may benefit from ISDS mechanisms, should they seek to effect policy change or petition for compensation. While the Government have previously argued that the UK has only ever been subject to four such dispute cases, and that the UK never lost such a case, it begs the question: why does the Secretary of State feel that this mechanism needs to be incorporated in a deal with a country such as Canada?

Trade Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I am very happy to respond to my hon. Friend, and I understand the distinctions she is making, but she will also understand what I have already set out about the force of the treaties, which is simply a matter of law. We will not be bound by the treaties and therefore we would not be able to continue as a member of the EU, and therefore as a member of the EU customs union, although, as I have pointed out, we could then come back and form a customs union with the European Union.

My hon. Friend asked specifically about Turkey’s relationship with the European Union. Turkey has a customs union agreement with the EU customs union, but it is not a member of the EU customs union—she should be aware of that—and there is therefore an asymmetry in the way in which its trade relations are conducted. The EU conducts the deals and agreements with third-party countries on behalf of Turkey that set its tariffs and quotas. Indeed, that has caused Turkey great concern, because while the Mexico-EU agreement means that Mexico can import cars into Turkey tariff-free, there is no reciprocal liberalisation of Mexico’s markets for Turkey’s textiles, and Turkey is extremely aggrieved about that.

Were we to have the same arrangement, we could be in a position in which the European Union concluded an agreement with the United States—for example, perhaps along the lines of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which many Members would have concerns about—to the detriment of this country but the advantage of the European Union, which we would have no control over, and without liberalising US markets to British exports. That would be an extremely bad deal indeed. I trust that fully answers my hon. Friend’s question.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

rose—

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

The right hon. Lady is free to suggest whatever she likes. I have dealt with the customs union at great length this afternoon and made our position quite clear.

All information exchanged between the UK and US officials will be kept secret until four years after the working group has been concluded. That is why hon. Members should not take on trust any verbal reassurances that the Government or the Secretary of State might give this afternoon. One has to establish good faith to earn trust.

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on the subject of transparency?

[Barry Gardiner]

On transparency, yes. The hon. Lady has been very persistent, so I will give way.

[Vicky Ford]

If I may, I want to take the hon. Gentleman back to his suggestion that the European Parliament is somehow a far more transparent organisation when it comes to discussions on trade deals, especially trade deals with the US. My memory is that the discussions with trade negotiators and MEPs were held behind closed doors, with only trade committee members and committee chairs present. The papers held by the European Parliament were all kept behind closed doors and were not transparent. I have heard the Minister say that he wants us to have a transparent process in which the House will be consulted and able to scrutinise future trade deals in a better manner.

[Barry Gardiner]

Look, the hon. Lady is of course right that the European Union held a lot of those discussions in private, particularly over TTIP. However, she may be unaware though that although European Members of Parliament were able to access the text of the TTIP agreement, this Secretary of State refused for nine months to set up a reading room so that Members of this House could access the very same information that was available to her colleagues in the European Union.