European Union (Withdrawal) Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Exiting the European Union
Chris Leslie
Main Page: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)Department Debates - View all Chris Leslie's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Chris Leslie ExcerptsWednesday 20th December 2017
(7 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 View all European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 20 December 2017 - (20 Dec 2017)
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 77, in clause 13, page 9, line 9, at end insert—
“(3) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations—
(a) make provision enabling or requiring judicial notice to be taken of a relevant matter, or
(b) provide for the admissibility in any legal proceedings of specified evidence of—
(i) a relevant matter, or
(ii) instruments or documents issued by or in the custody of an EU entity.”
Clause 13 stand part.
Amendment 348, in schedule 5, page 36, line 9, at end insert—
“(c) any impact assessment conducted by Her Majesty’s Government that in any way concerns the economic and financial impact of in anyway altering, modifying or abolishing any relevant instrument.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish its economic impact assessments of the policy options for withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 76, in schedule 5, page 37, leave out paragraph 4.
That schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
Mr Leslie
Merry Christmas to you, Dame Rosie, and to all hon. and right hon. Members.
Under the peculiar vagaries of the Government’s programme motion, we have ended up with a peculiar day 8 in Committee, with a potential four-hour chunk to debate amendments to schedule 5, which is quite a narrow area of concern—the publication of retained EU legislation and rules of evidence—and, in theory, only four hours in the second half to debate the massive number of remaining amendments. The Committee will understand why I probably do not want to spend too much time on this first group, because I suspect a large number of hon. Members will want to speak on the second group.
Nevertheless, I will have a crack at new clause 21 because it is always worth probing the Government on every part of a Bill. This new clause would ensure that, when Her Majesty’s Government publish EU retained legislation, they accompany it with a summarising explanatory document setting out, in terms that are readily understandable, its purpose and effect.
This might seem an obvious point, and someone might say, “Of course Ministers intend to do this. Surely, if we have all the legal gobbledegook we normally get in statute and in primary and secondary legislation, there will be a summary not just for Members of Parliament but for the public to read and understand so they know what they are talking about.” But that practice has only been in effect for a small number of years and, although it started with the good intention of providing explanatory statements and explanatory notes, it has slipped back a bit from the original intention. When hon. Members pick up a dense and complex proposal, they will often find that the explanatory notes basically say the same thing, perhaps with a few dots and commas changed here and there, and feel that the proposal is as impenetrable as it ever was.
The point is that clarity is needed if we are to transfer a great set of EU legislation into UK law. Such clarity is an important principle that Parliament should underline and establish, which is what new clause 21 seeks to do. More than that, when we legislate we should make it clear not just for the lawyers but for everyone so that all our constituents know and understand the consequences of the laws we are putting in place.
Such clarity was not always evident in the referendum campaign in the run-up to June 2016. In fact, many would still say that there was a lot of obfuscation and opacity, and that the consequences of Brexit were not clear at all. In my view, as much clarity and plain English as possible should be obtainable.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Another advantage of new clause 21 is that it would enable the Government to give us a clear explanation and perhaps say that “regulatory alignment” and “regulatory convergence” mean the same thing.
Mr Leslie
My hon. Friend takes the words out of my mouth. He has spotted that the famous paragraph 49 of the phase 1 agreement between the negotiators on the EU side and the negotiators on the UK side talks about maintaining regulatory alignment, which is a phrase that manages to span all sorts of different interpretations. The EU and Republic of Ireland side believes “full alignment” to mean full alignment and that we will essentially have the same arrangements as we have now. But when the Prime Minister returned to the House of Commons, she sort of said, “Oh, no, it is a very narrow meaning in the terms set out in particular paragraphs of the Belfast agreement.” It is amazing how words can mean one thing to one listener and another thing to an entirely different listener.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I agree that clarity is usually an admirable virtue, but if the thing the Government are trying to describe is not very clear in itself—perhaps because it is very complicated and impossible to make clear, or perhaps because it is deliberately obfuscating—what happens then? We cannot have a dishonest account of what a complex clause is doing.
Mr Leslie
We should not assume that those watching our proceedings, or reading them in Hansard, entirely trust the Government or Members of Parliament simply to know and understand what is happening. People outside have a right to know, and of course we expect businesses and members of the public to interpret the legislation we pass.
This is a signal moment, and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) rightly pointed out on, I think, day 2 in Committee that we are about to copy and paste a phenomenal body of legislation, which has accrued over decades, from the EU corpus of law into the British legal context. That requires us to pause for a moment to think about whether we are properly articulating to our constituents and others what exactly is happening in this process.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman refers to trust in the Government. Does he think our constituents will be reassured by the Prime Minister’s confirmation on Monday that the Cabinet’s discussions on our future trade deals do not involve the Cabinet having any assessment of the impact of different potential models?
Mr Leslie
Governments would normally be expected to have information and facts, with evidence being collected and presented and with an assessment made based on information that has been analysed and digested in a professional way, but it appears that, although we were told they exist, the impact assessments do not actually exist but are sectoral analyses. What is the difference between an impact assessment and a sectoral analysis? Well, we have been discussing that for quite some time.
Returning to EU retained legislation, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield rightly pointed out that we have lived with important legal understandings, such as on equalities law and environmental law, for a number of decades. Those understandings have been tenets of our expectations of the civilised society in which we live. Of course, they will now be transferred from European law into UK law. If they had originated in this House, they would have been enacted in primary legislation and any changes would have had to be made through primary legislation. But the Government’s proposal is to take this new category of EU retained law and bring it into UK law, and it will not have the same status as primary legislation. In many ways, it will be repealable or amendable, often by secondary legislation—by statutory instrument. This is not a point about Brexit; it is about the process of transposition. It is important that the public know what is going on when we are doing this. If a transfer is taking place, information should be set out in the explanatory notes, not just about the technical details, but about the weight that those legal rights will have once they come back into UK law.
There are a number of other aspects to this—
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting and relevant point, although it is of course true that all this legislation came in via secondary legislation in the first place and Parliament will have considerably more control over the secondary legislation that amends it than we currently have over the method that created it. I would imagine, as I am sure he does and the Government do, that Acts of Parliament will become more important, particularly if we want to make sure that this is not challengeable in the courts, as secondary legislation is much more vulnerable to challenge through the courts than primary legislation.
Mr Leslie
Yes. Although we disagree on many things, I think we can agree that if we are going to do this exercise, it needs to be done thoroughly and robustly, making sure that the intent of Parliament and the laws we are transposing are robust enough to withstand the test of time. Having explanatory statements to accompany those is an important development that has helped us in our legislative process recently. If we are going to have a sifting committee—it is not really a sifting committee; the procedures committee will be doing this—looking through all these statutory instruments and picking out which ones it thinks should not be passed through the negative procedure, this explanatory process ought to be in place to help hon. Members figure out which of these hundreds or even thousands of aspects of legislation are important enough to flag up to hon. Members more widely. That is a small point but it needs making. Other issues arise relating to “tertiary” legislation and the powers the Bill is giving to agencies and regulators to make, or to amend or remedy, laws. Again, I would like these things to be flagged up in plain English, wherever possible, so that parliamentarians can know about them. In essence, new clause 21 is about transparency, clarity and shining a light on this complicated bandwidth of activity that is about to hit all hon. Members, and that is important.
The only other point I wanted to make on this group—
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has been a Member of this place for far longer than I have. We have lived through 40-odd years of what he is now describing as “dense and complex” legislation which applies to the UK, but only at this stage does he seem to be concerned about what that legislation really means. Why has he not been so similarly vexed and exercised these past 40 years?
Mr Leslie
I have been vexed and exercised for quite a long part of the past 40 years, but that is my problem. The hon. Gentleman should know that as we go forward we are creating a new type of legislation. It is true that many of the European directives and regulations have been adopted over the years in different ways, but we are now importing this great body of EU retained law. It is going to affect him and his constituents, as well as my constituents. The first point to make is: can we understand what it is? That provides a useful opportunity in this exercise—
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman may agree with me that if there are deficiencies in the way EU law has been imported into our law, the last thing we want to do is to perpetuate them by keeping the uncertainties after we have gone. Yet schedule 5 raises a number of uncertainties, which this House would do well to address.
Mr Leslie
We are doing our duty by at least trying to comb over these issues now.
I wish to commend the Labour Front-Bench team on their amendment 348, which seeks to ensure that impact assessments are made properly and thoroughly before we take many of the decisions in this whole Brexit process. We already know enough about what has happened with the Brexit Secretary promising impact assessments and their turning out to be sectoral analyses. Many of us will have gone to the reading room and looked at the hastily written 50-odd documents, which would be good if someone was writing a master’s degree dissertation on the aviation sector—they are full of facts and information—but do not really provide much more analysis than people can already get off Google.
Where we did get an insight, although it may have been a slip of the tongue, was when the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared before the Treasury Committee on 6 December and said that he has
“modelled and analysed a wide range of potential alternative structures between the European Union and the United Kingdom”
and that
“it informs…our negotiating position”.
So obviously there does exist within government some level of impact assessment and analysis that has not yet been placed in the public domain. It might be that the Brexit Committee wishes to explore that further or that the Treasury Committee wishes to do so, but it is important that we know whether this is simply a reference to the pre-referendum work that was done under the former Chancellor George Osborne or whether further assessments have taken place, independently undertaken by the Treasury. We need to know what analysis the different Departments have undertaken and what sort of modelling on the different sectors of our economy has been done.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the Government produce assessments, whether or not they are “sectoral assessments”, on issues that are a lot more trivial than such an important thing befalling our country as Brexit? It is therefore imperative that we have detailed assessments on how this will affect our country.
Mr Leslie
Yes. That again gets to this question: are we accidentally bumbling our way through, where nobody has thought about doing an assessment, or, worse, is this work being done but then hidden, covered up and held back from Members of Parliament and from the public at large? I suspect that any serious analysis worth its salt will show that there are some damning consequences of exiting the single market and customs union, and I think that needs to be shared with the wider public.
Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Brexit Secretary was rather lucky when he appeared before the Select Committee, because having agreed to produce papers, he got out of it by sticking to a narrow definition of “impact assessment”? It was semantics that enabled him to get away with just producing the new documents, which he had hastily produced in the past few weeks, containing bland descriptions of where we are. As the originals are important documents, as these questions have been looked at and as we were told a summary had been sent to the Prime Minister, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the House’s motion meant that whatever documents the Government had that bore on the subject, they should have been produced? The Brexit Secretary should not have been allowed to get away with saying, “Strictly speaking, they’re not impact assessments.”
Mr Leslie
I do agree with that. We should not just skim over this question. These are some of the most profound decisions that Parliament will make for a generation and, if we are going to do our jobs correctly as Members of Parliament, having the right facts, getting the evidence, assembling the analysis, making sure we can weigh up the pros and cons of all these matters, and getting readily understandable, plain English explanatory statements of what is actually being proposed are prerequisites. They should be there to make us do our jobs properly.
Sir Desmond Swayne
How does the hon. Gentleman imagine that the assessments are going to be any less divisive than the issue that we are seeking to assess? The assessments are based on assumptions, and we profoundly disagree about the assumptions.
Mr Leslie
That is getting us into this question about experts again and whether there is such a thing as a fact or whether everything in this world is an opinion. It is important to make sure that if there are facts and if we can prove cause and effect—for example, if we know that the introduction of inspections or a hard border is going to slow down lorries going through a particular port—we can, QED, prove that there is going to be a particular consequence for the economy. That sort of analysis ought to be shared with the wider world.
Stephen Doughty
I wanted to give my hon. Friend an example before he concludes. Last week, the Prime Minister claimed that the UK would make “significant savings” as a result of our leaving the EU, but I have asked questions and Treasury Ministers have not been able to explain what those savings will be or to put a figure on them. Yet Financial Times analysis suggests that we will lose £350 million per week, which contrasts with what was on the side of that red bus.
Mr Leslie
That is right. That Financial Times analysis was worth sharing and should be shared, but we should not rely on journalism alone to do the job. We have a professional civil service; let us not gag it or try to lock it under the stairs somewhere. We should let that expertise come out so that we can all see and hear it.
Mr Duncan Smith
I only want to help the hon. Gentleman. Does he think it would have been a lot easier had the Exiting the European Union Committee asked the Secretary of State for the impact opinions that he may well have had?
Mr Leslie
Again, when is an assessment an opinion? In some ways, it diminishes and slightly denigrates the professionalism of our civil service to suggest that its output is merely conjecture or opinion. There are some things in this world that are facts, from which we can draw conclusions and which any rational observer would not really question.
Mrs Moon
May I read my hon. Friend the steel sector view? It says that
“it will be a lengthy and potentially very costly process for UK manufacturers to break into new markets…Returns on sales to new markets will frequently be poorer than from existing contracts with customers in neighbouring countries.”
Is not that something that the British people need to know?
Mr Leslie
That is the level of analysis and assessment that deserves to be shared and that was not available to the public prior to the referendum. It should not be dismissed but made more widely available. Members, and beyond them voters, can weigh up the different opinions. Some Members might rubbish representatives of the steel sector and say, “What do they know? I know better,” but we can weigh these things up and bring them into balance. We have the opportunity to debate transparency. Let us allow sunlight to flood over this issue and make sure that we are better informed going forward than we were before the referendum.
Mr Grieve
It is a pleasure to participate in the Committee’s consideration of schedule 5 and clause 13, although the reality is that the clause says very little and the schedule says a great deal.
As we have just heard, part 1 of schedule 5 provides for the publication of retained direct EU legislation by the Queen’s printer, which should be completely uncontroversial because its purpose is to promote transparency and access so that people in the United Kingdom can know what the law is. That is not some slight matter. One of the points that has been gently canvassed in the debate so far is the extent to which EU law may have created, in the way it has been brought into UK law, a degree of uncertainty as to what it is, in which case that is the last thing we should retain when we carry out this retention of the law. One of the central principles of the rule of law is that the law must be
“accessible…intelligible, clear and predictable”.
That is one of Lord Bingham’s principles of the rule of law, and it should matter to the House very much with respect to how it legislates. People need to be able to understand what activity is prohibited and therefore discouraged, and what their rights are so that they are able to claim whatever rights they have.
The interesting thing about part 1 of schedule 5 is that paragraph 2 empowers Ministers to make exceptions to the duty to publish retained direct EU legislation by
“giving a direction to the Queen’s printer specifying the instrument or category of instruments that are excepted.”
There appear to be no limitations on that power and no guidance on when such instruction might or might not be appropriate. My first question to my colleagues on the Treasury Bench, and particularly my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, is: what is the Government’s intention in respect of that exception? Why is it there—we need to understand why it has been included in the Bill—and how will it be used in practice? It seems to me that it is desirable that the entirety of retained direct EU legislation should be made available through the Queen’s printer, so what is the intention as to the circumstances in which a Minister might remove himself from the duty and give a different direction? There is, perhaps slightly to my regret, no amendment to address that question—had I focused on it slightly better at an earlier stage and not been diverted by other matters, I might have tried to tease it out by tabling an amendment—but as we are also debating whether the clause and schedule should stand part of the Bill, it is important that we give the matter some consideration. Indeed, it ties in exactly with what the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) said in introducing new clause 21, which is on exactly the same principle or philosophical issue of providing certainty.
My second question is about part 2 of schedule 5, which provides for Ministers by regulations to enable or require judicial notice to be taken of retained EU law or EU law. There are no limitations whatsoever on this delegated legislative power to enable or require judicial notice to be taken and, as far as I can see, nor are there any provisions to require that a Minister can make such regulations only under certain circumstances—for example, regulatory harmonisation might be a legitimate reason for making such regulations. This is a classic Henry VIII power, as paragraph 4(3) provides total Henry VIII powers, and is only limited, under paragraph 4(4), to primary legislation made or passed before the end of the Session in which this Bill is passed.
All that takes me back to an interesting debate the Committee had on a previous day—which one has rather faded out of my memory—in which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and I raised our continuing concerns about the judiciary having a lack of clarity about how they were supposed to interpret and apply retained EU law. Lord Neuberger and Lady Hale have expressed concern that the Bill is insufficiently clear about how retained EU law should be interpreted by the courts post exit. Lord Neuberger in particular was concerned by the prospect of the courts having to determine questions of regulatory harmonisation against divergence between UK and EU law—an essentially political topic, with possible economic consequences to the interpretation. As it happens, regulations made under part 2 of schedule 5 might address the judiciary’s anxiety about the need for better guidance on retained EU law, but what troubles me is that this provision again subtly sidelines Parliament from any role in providing guidance, as it is a matter of Executive discretion.
I must say to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, and to my other colleagues on the Treasury Bench, that I do understand the Government’s difficulties. The whole Bill is about an accretion of power to a Government who do not really know how they are going to have to use that power and are fearful that something will come up that will require them to act swiftly, and who therefore think that they have to maximise the tools at their disposal.
Forgive my repeating this—I think that the Bill has been quite well improved as it has gone through the House and, indeed, some of the assurances that have been given will lead to further improvements, I have no doubt, on Report—but it was this sort of thing that made me describe the Bill as a monstrosity on Second Reading. It is so contrary to the normal way in which one would expect to legislate for Parliament both to grant the powers that a Government need, including, where necessary, powers of secondary legislation, and at the same time to make sure that these cannot run out of control. On the plain face of the Bill, this is really one of the immense Henry VIII powers. The Government have decided to resolve this issue by taking a very big sledgehammer to the normal structures.
Mr Leslie
I am grateful to the Solicitor General for addressing new clause 21 in that way, which will be useful to the poor members of the committee that has been given the task of sifting what should and should not be negative statutory instruments. The commitment to provide explanatory memorandums that are readily understandable is very helpful. Dealing with perhaps 12,000 regulations is, of course, a massive task, but does the Solicitor General not agree that that might be one of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit?
The Solicitor General
I think that there are many consequences on which the hon. Gentleman and I could dwell on another occasion. The fact is, however, that it is my task to try to ensure, as one of the Law Officers, that the principles of the rule of law to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield referred in his speech—accessibility, clarity and certainty—are adhered to. We will deal with the issues so that we uphold those important principles, which were set out by the late Lord Bingham.
Mr Dhesi
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that intervention, because if Mars can do it, I am sure we can do it within Parliament. The Government’s approach is, in essence, keeping business in the dark.
In conclusion, a cliff edge scenario, with us sleepwalking into no deal, which is where this Government seem to be heading, would be severely damaging to us and our economy. We need to change course and avoid this fate of no deal. A starting point on that would be clear and detailed impact assessments.
Mr Leslie
I thank the House for going into much more detail than we perhaps initially expected on these clauses and amendments. It is has been a worthwhile investigation of schedule 5. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), in particular, raised pertinent points about rules of evidence, and we have heard good speeches from many of my hon. Friends, too. The Minister says that schedule 5 allows those explanatory memorandums to be produced by Government to help the House to sift through these potentially 12,000-plus statutory instruments that are going to come, so I will take his word on that and we will hold him to account on it. In those circumstances, and as we have many other issues to discuss, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
New Clause 13
Customs duties
“A Minister of the Crown may not make regulations to appoint exit day until Royal Assent is granted to an Act of Parliament making provision for the substitution of section 5 (customs duties) of the European Communities Act 1972 with provisions that shall allow the United Kingdom to remain a member of the EU common customs tariff and common commercial policy.”—(Mr Leslie.)
This new clause would ensure that provisions allowing the UK to remain a member of the Customs Union, as currently set out in section 5 of the European Communities Act 1972 but set to be repealed by section 1 of this Act, will be enacted ahead of exit day.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Temporary Chair (Sir David Crausby)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 399.
Amendment 349, in clause 14, page 10, line 46, leave out “for a term of more than 2 years”.
This amendment would prevent Ministers using delegated powers to create criminal offences which carry custodial sentences.
Government amendment 400.
Clause 14 stand part.
That schedule 6 be the Sixth schedule to the Bill.
New clause 8—Committee of the Regions—
“Her Majesty’s Government shall—
(a) maintain a full consultative role for local authorities throughout the process of withdrawal from the European Union, in due time and in an appropriate way in the planning and decision-making processes for all matters which concern them, and
(b) provide for a formal mechanism in domestic law fully to replicate the advisory role conferred on local authorities via membership of the European Union Committee of the Regions.”
This new clause would ensure that the current consultative role that UK local government currently have via the EU Committee of the Regions would be replicated in the UK after exit day.
New clause 10—Transitional arrangements—
“Her Majesty’s Government shall, in pursuit of a new relationship between the United Kingdom and European Union after exit day, seek to negotiate and agree transitional arrangements with the European Union of sufficient duration to allow—
(a) the conclusion and coming into force of new trade agreements replicating as closely as possible all those trade agreements currently applying to the UK by virtue of its membership of the EU before exit day;
(b) an associate membership of the EU Single Market so that the regulatory settlement existing between the UK and EU before exit day can continue for the duration of transitional arrangements, which shall be not less than two years after exit day.”
This new Clause would require the UK Government to seek transitional arrangements that would allow existing trade agreements which currently apply to the UK to be negotiated and continued for the circumstances applying after the UK has exited the EU, and would seek transitional arrangements including an associate membership of the EU Single Market for not less than two years following exit day.
New clause 11—Ongoing regulatory requirements—
“After exit day the Secretary of State shall continue to assess all EU regulations, decisions and tertiary legislation and publish a report to both Houses of Parliament assessing the costs and benefits of each regulation and directive and whether HM Government should consider it expedient to propose a similar reform to UK domestic legislation in order to secure an ongoing regulatory alignment between the UK and the EU going forward.”
After exit day the European Union is likely to continue to produce legislation, regulations and decisions that would have applied to the United Kingdom if we had remained a member of the EU. This new clause would require Ministers to publish an assessment of new and developing EU laws and regulations and whether there would be benefits or costs for the UK in adopting similar legal changes to UK domestic legislation with a view to maintaining regulatory alignment with the EU as far as possible.
New clause 31—Promotion of the safety and welfare of children and young people following withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union—
“(1) The Secretary of State shall make the arrangements specified in this section for the purposes of safeguarding children and promoting their welfare from exit day onwards.
(2) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a strategy for seeking continued co-operation with—
(a) the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol),
(b) Eurojust, and
(c) the European Criminal Records Information System
on matters relating to the safety and welfare of children and young people.
(3) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a strategy for seeking continued participation in the European Arrest Warrant, in relation to the promotion of the safety and welfare of children and young people.”
This new clause would require the Government to lay before Parliament a strategy for maintaining co-operation with certain EU bodies and structures after exit day for the purposes of promoting the safety and welfare of children and young people.
New clause 32—Programmes eligible until exit day for support from the European Social Fund—
“The Secretary of State shall bring forward proposals for a fund to support, on and after exit day, programmes and projects which—
(a) relate to
(i) the promotion of social inclusion amongst children and young people,
(ii) efforts to combat poverty and discrimination amongst children and young people, and
(iii) investment in education, training and vocational training or skills and lifelong learning for children and young people, and
(b) would have been eligible for funding up until exit day by the European Social Fund.”
This new clause seeks to maintain financial support after exit day for projects and programmes which would have been eligible for funding from the European Social Fund.
New clause 33—Mitigating any inflationary risks after exit day—
“(1) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a strategy for mitigating any risks which withdrawal from the EU may present to low income families with children.
(2) The strategy set out in subsection (1) must include a commitment to assess each year whether rates of benefits and tax credits are maintaining value in real terms relative to costs of living as defined by the Consumer Prices Index.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a strategy for mitigating any potential risks which withdrawal from the EU might present to low income families with children.
New clause 40—European Neighbourhood Policy—
“The Secretary of State shall, by 30 September 2018, lay before Parliament a strategy for seeking to maintain a role for the UK in the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy after exit day.”
New clause 41—European Development Fund—
“The Secretary of State shall, by 30 September 2018, lay before Parliament a report on the Government’s policy on future payments into the European Development Fund.”
New clause 42—EU Citizens’ Severance Payments—
“The Secretary of State shall, by 30 September 2018, lay before Parliament a report on the Government’s policy on EU citizens’ rights to severance payments at EU agencies based in the UK.”
New clause 43—Diplomatic Staff—
“The Secretary of State shall, by 30 September 2018, lay before Parliament a report on the Government’s policy on future arrangements for the UK to second diplomatic staff members to the European Union External Action Service.”
New clause 44—Duty to make arrangements for an independent evaluation: health and social care—
“(1) No later than 1 year after this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the impact of this Act on the health and social care sector.
(2) The evaluation carried out by an independent person to be appointed by the Secretary of State, after consulting the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the relevant Northern Ireland departments, must analyse and assess—
(a) the effects of this Act on the funding of the health and social care sector;
(b) the effects of this Act on the health and social care workforce;
(c) the impact of this Act on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the health and social care sector; and
(d) any other such matters relevant to the impact of this Act upon the health and care sector.
(3) The person undertaking an evaluation under subsection (1) above must, in preparing an evaluation report, consult—
(a) the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the relevant Northern Ireland department;
(b) providers of health and social care services;
(c) individuals requiring health and social care services;
(d) organisations working for and on behalf of individuals requiring health and social care services; and
(e) any persons whom the Secretary of State deems relevant.
(4) The Secretary of State must, as soon as reasonably practicable after receiving a report of the evaluation, lay a copy of the report before Parliament.”
This new clause would require an independent evaluation of the impact of the Act upon the health and social care sector to be made after consulting the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the relevant Northern Ireland department, service providers, those requiring health and social care services, and others.
New clause 46—Consultation assessing impact of no agreement with the EU for workers on withdrawal—
“Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must carry out a public consultation assessing the impact on—
(a) workers in the EU who are UK citizens, and
(b) workers in the UK who are EU citizens
if no agreement is reached with the European Union on the UK’s withdrawal.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to carry out a public consultation within six months of the passing of the Act, assessing the impact of not having an EU withdrawal deal on workers in the EU who are UK citizens, and on workers in the UK who are EU citizens.
New clause 47—Assessing the impact of leaving the EU on social and medical care provision for disabled people—
“Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish an assessment of the impact of leaving the EU on social and medical care provision for disabled people living in the UK.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish within six months of the passing of this Act an assessment of the impact of leaving the EU on social and medical care provision for disabled people living in the UK.
New clause 48—Mutual Recognition Agreements—
“(1) In the course of negotiating a withdrawal agreement, Her Majesty’s Government shall seek to maintain after exit day the full range of mutual recognition agreements with which the United Kingdom has obtained rights of product conformity assessments and standards by virtue of its membership of the European Union.
(2) In respect of mutual recognition agreements relating to the safeguarding of public health, within one month of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must publish a strategy for ensuring that existing UK notified bodies, in accordance with provisions laid out in the EU Medical Devices Regulation, may continue to conduct conformity assessment certification for both UK and EU medical devices to ensure continuity within and beyond the European Union.”
This new clause would require the UK Government to seek to maintain existing mutual recognition agreements and to publish a plan for UK notified bodies (such as the British Standards Institute) to continue to perform conformity assessments for medical devices and pubic health-related products deriving both within the UK and from across the EU.
New clause 52—Duty to secure safe harbour—
“(1) It shall be the duty of the Prime Minister to seek to secure the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the Single Market and of the Customs Union until such time as the Prime Minister is satisfied that the conditions in subsections (2) and (3) are met.
(2) The condition in this subsection is that the United Kingdom and the European Union have reached an agreement on the future trading relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
(3) The condition in this subsection is that the United Kingdom has developed a satisfactory framework for immigration controls in respect of nationals of European Union Member States not resident in the United Kingdom on the date on which the United Kingdom ceases to belong to the European Union.”
New clause 54—Implementation and transition—
“(1) Her Majesty’s Government shall seek to secure a transition period prior to the implementation of the withdrawal agreement of not less than two years in duration, during which—
(a) access between EU and UK markets should continue on the terms existing prior to exit day,
(b) the structures of EU rules and regulations existing prior to exit day shall be maintained,
(c) the UK and EU shall continue to take part in the level of security cooperation existing prior to exit day,
(d) new processes and systems to underpin the future partnership between the EU and UK can be satisfactorily implemented, including a new immigration system and new regulatory arrangements,
(e) financial commitments made by the United Kingdom during the course of UK membership of the EU shall be honoured.
(2) No Minister of the Crown shall appoint exit day if the implementation and transition period set out in subsection (1) does not feature in the withdrawal arrangements between the UK and the European Union.”
This new clause would ensure that the objectives set out by the Prime Minister in her Florence speech are given the force of law and, if no implementation and transition period is achieved in negotiations, then exit day may not be triggered by a Minister of the Crown. The appointment of an ‘exit day’ would therefore require a fresh Act of Parliament in such circumstances.
New clause 56—Saving of acquired rights: Gibraltar—
“(1) Nothing in this Act is to be construed as removing, replacing, altering or prejudicing the exercise of an acquired right.
(2) Any power, howsoever expressed, contained in this Act may not be exercised if the exercise of that power is likely to or will remove, replace or alter or prejudice the exercise of an acquired right.
(3) In subsection (2) a reference to a power includes a power to make regulations.
(4) In this section an acquired right means a right that existed immediately before exit day—
(a) whereby a person from or established in Gibraltar could exercise that right (either absolutely or subject to any qualification) in the United Kingdom; and
(b) the right arose in the context of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and Gibraltar’s status as a European territory for whose external relations the United Kingdom is responsible within the meaning of Article 355(3) TFEU and to which the provisions of the EU Treaties apply, subject to the exceptions specified in the 1972 Act of Accession.
(5) Nothing in this section prevents the use of the powers conferred by this Act to the extent that acquired rights are not altered or otherwise affected to the detriment of persons enjoying such rights.”
The purpose of this new clause is to ensure that the Bill does not remove or prejudice rights (for instance in the financial services field) which, as a result of the UK’s (and Gibraltar’s) common membership of the EU, could be exercised in the UK by a person from or established in Gibraltar, where that right existed immediately before exit day.
New clause 59—Mutual recognition of professional qualifications—
“(1) In the course of negotiating a withdrawal agreement, Her Majesty’s Government shall seek to maintain after exit day the mutual recognition of professional qualifications which the United Kingdom has obtained under Directives 2005/36/EC and 2013/55/EU by virtue of its membership of the European Union.
(2) HM Government shall ensure that competent authorities for the purpose of the European Union (Recognition of Professional Qualifications) Regulations 2015 may continue to recognise professional qualifications obtained in the European Union as equivalent to qualifications obtained in the UK after exit day to ensure continuity.”
This new clause would (a) commit the Government to seeking to replicate in the withdrawal agreement the framework for mutual recognition of professional qualifications the UK has at present and (b) allow competent UK authorities to continue to recognise EU qualifications as equivalent to their UK counterparts.
New clause 61—Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)—
“(1) The Secretary of State must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the United Kingdom participates in the standards and procedures established by the Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (“REACH”) (Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006) after exit day.
(2) Subject to the provisions of the withdrawal agreement, steps under subsection (1) may include regulations under section 17, or another provision of this Act, providing for full or partial participation of the United Kingdom in REACH.”
This new clause would ensure that after withdrawal from the EU, the UK continued to participate in the Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals.
New clause 71—Mutual market access for financial and professional services—
“(1) Before exit day, a Minister of the Crown must lay before Parliament a report assessing the progress made by Her Majesty’s Government in negotiating continued mutual access to markets in the EU and the United Kingdom for businesses providing financial or professional services.
(2) ‘Mutual access to markets’ means the ability for a business established in any member State to provide services in or into the United Kingdom and vice versa.”
This new clause would require a Minister to report before exit day on the Government’s progress in negotiating mutual market access for financial and professional services
New clause 72—Importation of food and feed: port health etc.—
“(1) Before exit day, a Minister of the Crown must lay before Parliament a report assessing the progress made by Her Majesty’s Government in negotiating—
(a) continued mutual recognition of standards, inspections, certifications and other official controls, and
(b) a continued basis for co-operation among public authorities, as between the United Kingdom and the EU in relation to food or animal feed—
(i) produced in, or imported from a third country into, the United Kingdom or a member State, and
(ii) subsequently exported from the United Kingdom to a member State, or vice versa.
(2) Any power of the Secretary of State or a Minister of the Crown (including a power under retained EU law) to make regulations requiring or authorising the charging of a fee or other charge in respect of the inspection of food or animal feed on its importation into the United Kingdom must, so far as reasonably practicable, be exercised so as to allow public authorities conducting such inspections fully to recover any costs incurred in the carrying out of such inspections.”
This new clause would require a Minister to report before exit day on the Government’s progress in negotiating mutual recognition of controls on food and feed imports. It would also require the Government to permit, so far as possible, full cost recovery for authorities carrying out border inspections of food or feed.
New clause 83—Strategy for UK wind energy sector—
“(1) Within six months of any vote in the House of Commons on the terms of withdrawal from the EU, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a strategy for supporting the UK wind energy sector in its ability to export competitively to markets in the EU.
(2) The strategy set out in subsection (1) must assess the impact that—
(a) tariffs,
(b) quotas,
(c) customs checks, and
(d) other non-tariff barriers
arising from any withdrawal agreement with the EU will have on the UK wind energy sector’s ability to export competitively to EU markets over the next twenty years.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a strategy for supporting the UK wind energy sector in its ability to export competitively to markets in the EU following exit day, and to do this within six months of any vote in the House of Commons on the terms of withdrawal.
New clause 84—UK higher education sector: participation in EU programmes—
“(1) Within six months of any vote in the House of Commons on the terms of withdrawal from the EU, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a strategy setting out its intentions regarding the nature of the UK higher education sector’s future participation in—
(a) the 2014-2020 Horizon 2020 programme,
(b) the Erasmus+ Exchange programme, and
(c) future EU research, collaboration and student exchange programmes.
(2) The strategy set out in subsection (1) must set out its intentions regarding the extent to which the UK higher education sector will be able to access existing and future EU programmes after exit day both—
(a) during any transitional period, and
(b) following any transitional period.
(3) The strategy set out in subsection (1) must also estimate the future impact that any withdrawal agreement will have on the UK higher education sector in terms of—
(a) the financing of future research,
(b) the quality of future research, measured according to the Research Excellence Framework, and
(c) the ability to participate in future EU-wide collaborative research programmes in the twenty years starting from the day on which this Act receives Royal Assent.
(4) The strategy set out in subsection (1) must also set out the extent to which UK Government funds will address any shortfalls identified from calculations and estimates made as a result of subsections (2) and (3).”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State, within six months of any vote in the House of Commons on the terms of withdrawal, to lay before Parliament a strategy setting out its intentions for the UK higher education sector’s future participation in current and future EU research, collaboration and student exchange programmes following exit day. This strategy would have to set out the long-term impact that the withdrawal agreement will have on the UK’s future participation, and set out the extent to which UK Government funds would mitigate this impact.
New clause 85—Strategy for economic and social cohesion principles derived from Article 174 of TFEU—
“(1) The Secretary of State shall, before 31 December 2018, lay before Parliament a strategy for developing principles for economic and social cohesion derived from Article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
(2) The strategy laid under subsection (1) shall state the principles derived from Article 174 of TFEU.
(3) The principles under subsection (2) shall form part of UK domestic law on and after the day of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
(4) The aims of the strategy under subsection (1) shall be—
(a) to reduce inequalities between communities, and
(b) to reduce disparities between the levels of development of regions of the UK, with particular regard to—
(i) regions with increased levels of deprivation,
(ii) rural and island areas,
(iii) areas affected by industrial transition, and
(iv) regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps.
(5) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations make provision for programmes to implement the strategy.
(6) Programmes under subsection (5) shall run for a minimum of ten years and shall be independently monitored.”
This new clause would enshrine in domestic law the principles underlying Article 174 (Title XVIII) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Government amendment 401.
Clause 15 stand part.
Amendment 362, in schedule 8, page 49, line 4, after “document” insert “(not including a contract)”.
The amendment would make clear that the Bill does not modify the interpretation of contracts relating to EU law.
Amendment 102, page 50, line 2, leave out paragraph 3
This amendment would remove the additional power provided in paragraph 3.
Amendment 103, page 50, line 41, leave out paragraph 5
This amendment would remove the future powers to make subordinate legislation in paragraph 5.
Government amendment 402.
Amendment 380, page 55, line 16, leave out sub-paragraph (1) and insert—
“(1) For the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998, any retained EU legislation is to be treated as subordinate legislation and not primary legislation.”
This amendment would amend the status of EU-derived domestic legislation to subordinate legislation for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Amendment 11, page 55, line 17, leave out “primary legislation and not”.
This amendment would remove the proposal to allow secondary legislation to be treated as primary for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Government amendments 403 to 405
Amendment 291, page 58, line 31, leave out paragraph 28 and insert—
“(1) The prohibition on making regulations under section 7, 8, or Schedule 2 after a particular time does not affect the continuation in force of regulations made at or before that time, except where subparagraphs (2) and (3) apply.
(2) Regulations may not be made under powers conferred by regulations made under section 7, 8, or Schedule 2 after the end of the period of two years beginning with exit day.
(3) Regulations made under powers conferred by regulations made under section 7, 8, or Schedule 2 may not be made during the two year period in subparagraph (2) unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
This amendment would require all tertiary legislation made under powers conferred by regulations to be subject to Parliamentary control.
That schedule 8 be the Eighth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 9 be the Ninth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 18 stand part.
Amendment 120, in clause 19, page 14, line 40, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) The remaining provisions of this Act come into force once following a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should approve the United Kingdom and Gibraltar exit package proposed by HM Government at conclusion of the negotiations triggered by Article 50(2) for withdrawal from the European Union or remain a member of the European Union.
(2A) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, appoint the day on which the referendum is to be held.
(2B) The question that is to appear on the ballot papers is—“Do you support the Government’s proposed new agreement between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar and the European Union or Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”
(2C) The Secretary of State may make regulations by statutory instrument on the conduct of the referendum.”
This amendment is intended to ensure that before March 2019 (or the end of any extension to the two-year negotiation period) a referendum on the terms of the deal has to be held and provides the text of the referendum question.
Amendment 82, page 14, line 40, at beginning insert “Subject to subsection (2A)”.
This amendment is a consequential amendment resulting from Amendments 78, 79 and 80 to Clause 1 requiring the Prime Minister to reach an agreement on EEA and Customs Union membership, gain the consent of the devolved legislatures and report on the effect leaving the EU will have on the block grant before implementing section 1 of this Act.
Amendment 85, page 14, line 42, at end insert—
“(2A) But regulations bringing into force section 1 may not be made until the Secretary of State lays a report before—
(a) Parliament, and
(b) the National Assembly for Wales
outlining the effect of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on the National Assembly for Wales’s block grant.”
This amendment would require the UK Government to lay a report before the National Assembly for Wales outlining the effect of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on Welsh finances, before exercising the power under section 1. This would allow for scrutiny of the Leave Campaign’s promise to maintain current levels of EU funding for Wales.
Amendment 86, page 14, line 42, at end insert—
“(2A) But regulations bringing into force section 1 may not be made until the Secretary of State lays a report before—
(a) Parliament, and
(b) the National Assembly for Wales
outlining the effect of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Single Market and Customs Union on the Welsh economy.”
This amendment would require the UK Government to lay a report before Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales outlining the effect of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU Single Market and Customs Union before exercising the powers in section 1.
Amendment 219, page 14, line 42, at end insert—
“(2A) A Minister of the Crown may not appoint a day for any provision of this Act to come into force until the Secretary of State has published a report on which Scottish products will be identified with geographical indications in any future trade deal that Her Majesty’s Government seeks to negotiate after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, and has laid a copy of the report before Parliament.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government report on which Scottish products will be identified with geographical indications in any future trade deal that Her Majesty’s Government negotiates after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.
Amendment 220, page 14, line 42, at end insert—
“(2A) A Minister of the Crown may not appoint a day for any provision of this Act to come into force until a Minister of the Crown has published an assessment of the effect of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on Scottish businesses and laid a copy of the assessment before Parliament.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on Scottish businesses.
Amendment 221, page 14, line 42, at end insert—
“(2A) A Minister of the Crown may not appoint a day for any provision of this Act to come into force until a Minister of the Crown has published an assessment of the effect of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on food and drink safety and quality standards, and has laid a copy of the assessment before Parliament.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on food and drink safety and quality standards.
Clause 19 stand part.
Mr Leslie
We find ourselves in the last part of day eight of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill Committee. Frankly, it has come around far too soon. Members might want another day before Christmas—I do not know whether that can be arranged at the last minute by the Leader of the House.
This group of new clauses and amendments relates to a set of incredibly important issues. I am particularly keen to speak to new clause 13, which relates to the customs union, but there are many other new clauses and amendments in the group that are worth dwelling on. Before I come to new clause 13, I shall point out a few of them.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when he and I tabled new clause 54, we did so consciously trying to replicate Government policy as stated in the Florence speech? If the Minister would fairly promptly acknowledge and accept that, we should be able to save some time for the other important matters to be discussed in relation to this group.
Mr Leslie
That is an excellent suggestion. We could almost add new clause 54 to the copy-and-paste process, given that it is based on the Prime Minister’s own words. Obviously, I personally would like to go further, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I tabled the new clause in the spirit of compromise.
New clause 48 serves to highlight the important but often overlooked question of mutual recognition agreements. MRAs are another series of international obligations between countries. The UK has obtained rights for notified bodies to undertake conformity assessments to make sure that standards across the EU are complied with and that UK firms can certify assessments of conformity across that market of 500 million people by virtue of the process that they undertake in the UK. If we lose that MRA process, it could cause immense disruption to many businesses and sectors in the UK.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I know that Ministers are already aware of REACH—the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—but the regulatory compliance of companies such as BASF in my constituency is essential to the continuation of effective trading across borders. I really do not want to see companies moving elsewhere, perhaps where regulations are easier to follow, because we will lose good jobs in research, development and manufacturing, and all in the incredibly important science, technology, engineering and maths sector. Does my hon. Friend agree that our leaving REACH will put that at risk?
Mr Leslie
I entirely agree and my hon. Friend is completely correct to stand up for her constituents and local businesses and to make that point, which is too often overlooked. We need mutual recognition arrangements like the REACH regulations. It is often said that big corporations want to get out of such regulations, but in this case they want to stay part of that framework because it allows them to access markets. If we sacrifice that access, they will lose out and jobs will go as a result.
On a related issue, new clause 59 concerns the recognition of professional qualifications throughout the EU. I have been talking to the Royal Institute of British Architects, which is very worried about British graduates in architecture and those already in practice who often have services to sell across that wide range of 28 countries—as it is currently—and it is deeply concerned about whether its professional qualifications will continue to be recognised for the purposes of its ongoing business in that wider market. This is really serious stuff, and I hope that the Minister will address the matter when he has time to respond to these amendments.
New clause 11 is about how Parliament should be able to keep track, even after exit day, of regulations that are being made in the European Union. When we leave, we will obviously have our own jurisdiction and the EU will have its own jurisdiction, but if the EU continues to evolve its regulatory practices and to make new changes to rules and laws, we need some device to keep us informed in the UK Parliament so that we have the choice over whether to contract with those rules and stay in alignment or to ensure that we have regulatory equivalence. This is really more of a procedural new clause, but it is just asking the question of how we will keep in touch given that these are our near neighbours and the markets with which we have to remain aligned.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is proposing a whole series of amendments that would certainly improve the current dire situation of this Bill, but is not a simple solution to all these amendments to stay in the single market and the customs union?
Mr Leslie
That is indeed the simple solution. I was building towards that crescendo, but there is always somebody who steals my punchline. That is effectively the conclusion that I have reached. Before I do reach it, there is another important measure, new clause 8, that English local authorities have been keen to see in the Bill. Currently, they have consultative rights on those areas of policy that are currently decided within the European Union framework by virtue of their membership of something called the Committee of the Regions. I know that some Government Members may baulk at that as some sort of bureaucratic committee that has no purpose, but many local authorities value the voice that they have through that committee into the policymaking process at European level. The question they are asking is: will they still have those same consultative rights when those areas of policy are brought back into a UK context? It is a fair question and I hope that the Local Government Association’s points will be addressed.
The main issue that I want to discuss is new clause 13, which relates to the customs union. It would ensure that we do not get past exit day without new legislation that allows the UK the option to remain a member of the customs union—in other words, the EU common customs tariff and common commercial policy. We must be absolutely crystal clear about this: ditching the most efficient tariff-free, frictionless free trade area in the world is what we are on the brink of doing for something that will inevitably—inevitably—be inferior. The referendum ballot paper did not include that question and put it in front of our electors. What we have seen is the Prime Minister’s interpretation of the result of that referendum, but that does not have to be Parliament’s interpretation.
If we find ourselves messing up the way that the UK border operates, the Irish land border, our ports and our airports, then vast swathes of our businesses and our economy face very, very significant disruption. Indeed, customs is, potentially, the overnight cliff-edge issue that will hit the headlines if we get this wrong, particularly if we have no deal—that hard Brexit.
Let us consider the issues at stake: last year, goods worth £382 billion were traded between the UK and the European Union. That is virtually the same amount as the UK traded with the rest of the world, so we are talking about trade of half of our goods. In fact, the system currently works so well across the 28 countries— 500 million people—that professionals talk not about exports and imports, because the movement of goods and services is so seamless and frictionless, but about arrivals and dispatches. It is as simple as that. That is how businesses regard the inventory available to many of them through the warehouses across the European Union. For car manufacturers in the UK, selling a car to a customer in Birmingham is just as simple as selling one in Berlin or Brussels. Fewer than 1% of the lorries that go through Dover or the channel tunnel—the main conduits for goods and traffic—require checks, so it is a smooth and seamless process at present.
Tom Brake
It is indeed. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has visited Dover port. If he has, he will know that the site has no room available for customs checks. If he has visited the channel tunnel, he will also know that there is no capacity whatever to do any customs checks there.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are failing to understand the deep complexity of supply chains in the EU? He is talking about the finished product of a car, but there are also many automotive components that go backwards and forwards between the UK and mainland Europe. Sometimes within a single company, one part is made on mainland Europe, fixed into a car in this country and then exported back out to Europe. I also believe that the planning application for the lorry park was rejected because the council failed to carry out an environmental impact assessment.
Wera Hobhouse
The Brexit Select Committee actually visited Dover and we then met a representative of the port of Calais. Although this country is prepared to build a lorry park, the French side will not build a lorry park because it has a migrant crisis. The port of Calais will just close under these circumstances, so where will we export to and import from?
Angela Smith
May I turn my hon. Friend’s attention to Ireland? Freight traffic to Dublin has enjoyed a growth rate of 700% since the establishment of the single market, but the control zone of the terminal is no bigger than it was in the 1980s, thanks to the fact that it has enjoyed the dismantling of customs control and port health control. Is he aware of any preparations or investment to deal with this potential problem if we do abolish the customs union?
Anna Soubry
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with my view that most people in this country do not understand the huge benefits of the customs union? Of course, a huge swathe of people have never had any experience of stuff being stopped in customs. I certainly remember those days because of my age. Has it been his experience that British businesses are in many ways even more concerned about the movement of goods and tariffs and not being in the customs union than the actual imposition of the tariffs themselves? Companies such as Rolls-Royce in neighbouring Derby hugely benefit from these large supply chains and they are really worried about our leaving the customs union.
Mr Leslie
The right hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) are right to focus on supply chains. The tariff could be a problem. Who knows what that would be—3%, 4% or 5%—if we fell back on the World Trade Organisation? Think of the disruption to business planning. A lot of firms would almost need to have an insurance policy at their disposal for the warehousing just to cope with the flows. We could be on the brink of many manufacturers fundamentally having to move away from the just-in-time business models that they have developed; it is almost like “RIP JIT” in this circumstance. We could almost see a whole new business model—we could be stepping back into the 20th century and earlier—if we get this wrong.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and indeed to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for drawing attention to this wider point, which greatly troubles manufacturers in my constituency, in particular. As things stand, they manufacture and ship immediately to customers in other parts of the European Union. We have a huge shortage of available space for new warehousing facilities in Greater Manchester, and it is really important that the Government understand that wider context—it is not just a question of problems at the ports.
Mr Leslie
We must not take these arrangements for granted. Many of our constituents have taken them for granted for decades now and thought, “Oh, well, this is all seamless,” so they would not understand, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said.
It is worth just walking through what happens when we do not have this sort of seamless arrangement. If a country is outside the customs union, this is what happens to goods that are destined for elsewhere. Before departure, people have to complete an export declaration, which is often lodged with a freight forwarding company. At the port of exit, the goods need to be cleared by the authorities, who decide whether inspection is needed. If so, the goods are possibly placed into storage and checked. Then, once they have left and travelled to the port of entry in the destination country, they are presented to the authorities via another declaration process, and potentially placed in storage again. Then there are country-of-entry checks and risk assessments; there is revenue collection; there could be checks for smuggled, unlicensed goods; and there are things such as hygiene, health and safety measures, labelling, consumer protection checks, the administration of quota restrictions, agricultural refunds, and trade defence checks to ensure that things are not being dumped unfairly in the country. All these administrative processes will absolutely add to the export process for goods.
Melanie Onn
Great Grimsby is well known for its fish and fish processing. We have discussed extensively some of the issues around delays to things such as automotive sector products, but we also have fresh products, such as fish. Fish is caught in Norway and imported to Grimsby, and it is an essential part of the fish processing industry. Any additional delays to that product will mean that supermarkets will not buy it—they will not want it—and the quality will reduce. That will have a really serious impact. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the issues around the delays and to make sure that the Government understand that reducing those delays in any way possible has to be at the forefront of their considerations.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I wonder why the hon. Gentleman is concerned for companies on that particular point, when Norway is not in the European Union or the customs union—it is in the single market. Therefore, the customs union aspect simply does not apply to Norway.
Mr Leslie
The hon. Gentleman will know that there are concerns. He said Norway was a “vassal state”—I think that was his phrase. I do not think the Norwegians would see it that way, but they have had to simply take instructions, in many ways, in terms of the European Union arrangements on a lot of these questions. With many of our products, particularly in the manufacturing sector, the customs union has given us great opportunity to thrive, and we have done particularly well in recent years on the back of that.
Wera Hobhouse
On that point, the Norwegian border is very interesting. Norway is in Schengen, so it does border checks on goods, but it does not need to do border checks on people. The main problem, of course, is that we are not in either. We need, at some point, to address the issue of how we check that lorries are not bringing into this country people we do not want to be here. I know that taking back control of our borders is a very important point, but there will be important discussions to be had about how we make that possible. Container ports will be okay, because we can seal the loads, but it will be a lot more difficult with lorries, because they take separate loads from separate consignments, and they need to be opened several times. So the issue of people smuggling is becoming quite potent.
Mr Leslie
The hon. Lady deals with the point incredibly well.
If we end frictionless trade or introduce barriers, with potentially the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, very significant problems will arise. The Government are either deluding themselves by saying, “There’s some miraculous blue-skies technological solution to all these things”, or deluding others because of the fudging and obfuscation that is going on, when, in moving from the phase 1 to the phase 2 process, they put in a form of words that seems to be interpreted in almost as many different ways as there are people reading them. They have kicked the issue into the long grass for now, but we are not going to be able to get to a decent deal without this unravelling.
Ian Paisley
The long list of checks that the hon. Gentleman read out that would be applicable are, as he knows, currently applied. That is done in a very mechanical way, often by computer through a trusted trader-type scheme. A lot of the mechanisms, procedures and protocols that he read out, especially for food and medical products, are already applied. What would lead to new and additional checks is a change in tariffs between our exports and imported goods. Therefore, surely the imperative for everyone in this House is to urgently get on to the part of the negotiations where we can get a tariff-free deal with the EU. Otherwise some of the issues that he highlighted will need to be covered.
Mr Leslie
I agree that we want to have a tariff-free relationship with our European neighbours—that much we can all agree on. However, the hon. Gentleman should look at the circumstances where we export to third countries outside the European Union that are not part of the free trade agreements that we have accrued over the 40 years of our membership of the European Union. Those free trade agreements are there for a reason. As we heard earlier, the reason people want out of the pure WTO arrangement and into an FTA is precisely that they want to minimise many of the transactional barriers and the inertia that can be there.
Let us take the car industry as an example. The chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the car industry’s own representative, is now voicing concerns about investment in the sector gradually beginning to ebb away, partly because of the uncertainty of this whole situation. The level of investment in the industry in the UK was £2.5 billion in 2015, then £1.6 billion in 2016, and it is heading to less than £1 billion this year. Car companies are “sitting on their hands”, according to the chief executive of the SMMT.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I want to take my hon. Friend back to what he was saying about the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We had evidence this morning at the Brexit Committee on this. As he knows, in their recent agreement with Brussels, the Government committed to having no infrastructure at the border, and, if necessary, to our providing full regulatory alignment with the internal market and the customs union in order to achieve that. Is he encouraged by that commitment, even though the Government’s current policy is not to stay in the customs union, because if it stands, it looks very likely that we will have to, in effect, stay in the customs union?
Mr Leslie
Absolutely. If we can maintain full alignment, which was the phrase used in that agreement, that is essentially the same thing as a customs union arrangement. However, there was a caveat in that Ministers said that it would apply unless specific solutions can be found for divergence that they might want to see. That is a bit like the European negotiator’s way of saying, “Come on then, do your best—let’s have a look at what you can dream up.” The worry that I had when the Prime Minister returned was that her interpretation of full alignment was to reference the old list within the Good Friday agreement that merely talked about areas such as agriculture, energy and tourism but excluded trade in goods, which is a pretty big part of the issue at the border. I do not think the European Union signed up to this thinking that there was an exclusion for trade in goods. It is a question of “watch and wait” until the situation unravels.
Tom Brake
May I bring the hon. Gentleman back to another border that he referred to, namely that between Norway and Sweden? Our Secretary of State for Transport is on record as saying that that is a completely frictionless border, across which things move with ease. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that is not the case? I think it was the Swedish trade body that said Norway is the hardest country to trade with.
Mr Baron
Before the hon. Gentleman whips himself up into too much of a state of pessimism, may I gently remind him that inward investment is at a record high? If anything, it has picked up recently. In addition, because the EU has no free trade deals with big trading partners such as the US, China, Australia and New Zealand, and neither do we. That has not prevented trade from being conducted handsomely; if anything, our surpluses are with those countries rather than with the EU.
Mr Leslie
I will come to the US situation in a moment. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the inward investment figures are massively inflated because of mergers and acquisitions data. When we consider the buy-outs of some of the large technology companies—[Interruption.] Well, I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman should necessarily interpret the stripping out of British ownership of such companies as a great British success. If he digs beneath the statistics, he might see a slightly different picture.
Our mythology about the UK’s potential to strike a great and bountiful set of trade deals if we could only rid ourselves of the shackles of the customs union is becoming a bit of a joke across the British economy.
Mr Leslie
I will give way in a moment. Our justification for leaving the customs union has to be more than simply to keep the Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade in a job. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who is keen to intervene, took evidence on some of these questions this morning.
I think that the potential United States deal that the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) referred to is being kiboshed as we speak. The US would want an agricultural basis for any trade deal with the UK, but there is a reason why the Americans dip their chicken in chlorine: they have entirely different and lower animal welfare standards than do the UK and the EU. If we were to do an agricultural deal with the US on the basis of those lower standards, it would undercut our farmers, abattoirs and food producers, who would have to chase each other down to the level of the lowest common denominator. It is contradictory to hear the Environment Secretary saying that he does not wish in any way to reduce safety standards or animal welfare standards, and he may well be killing off the idea of a US trade deal with his pronouncements.
Angela Smith
My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way again. This morning, the Secretary of State further entrenched his position, which will make it very difficult to complete a US trade deal involving food and food products. The other evidence that we have received in the Select Committee has indicated, week after week, that many parts of the agricultural sector believe that the UK Government over many generations—not just this Government, but previous ones—have never done the political or diplomatic brokering work necessary to build our export trading position with third countries outside the European Union. What on earth makes us think that we can now pull off this magic trick of building trade around the world to replace that which we have had with the European Union?
Mr Leslie
It is possible that our civil service will eventually gear up to do these things, and I would be the first person to say that we of course want to do new trade deals to repair some of the damage caused by this whole process, but it is not going to happen overnight. In fact, as you will remember, Sir David, Vote Leave promised during the campaign ahead of the referendum that we would be negotiating trade deals the day after the referendum and that they would all get going straightaway, but we are yet to see any of that actually kick off.
Ian Paisley
The hon. Gentleman has highlighted this contradiction, so will he explain why the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has not signed new clause 13—after all, he is on the record as saying that staying in the customs union would be a “disaster”—and why, given that Labour Members were whipped to vote against staying in the customs union, they have now made a volte-face and decided that staying in it is a possibility? What actually is the decided and determined policy of the Labour party on this issue?
Mr Leslie
I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) can speak for himself; he has done in the past and will do so again. I take the view that we should not shilly-shally on this issue, but stand up and say that there are risks to business and to our borders from our ports and airports being clogged up. We should also say that there is an economic cost—revenue costs for the Treasury—that could mean years of Brexit austerity ahead. All hon. Members, whichever side of the House we are on, need to recognise that some of the responsibility for these things will fall on our shoulders if we do not stand up now and say that staying in the customs union is the right way to proceed.
Anna Soubry
Given the hon. Gentleman’s experience, has he, like me, talked to people about the detail of the EU-Canada comprehensive economic and trade agreement, as well as about what the Australians and the Indians—and many other countries that are apparently queuing up to do these great trade deals with us—want? At the core of any free trade agreement with such countries will be an absolute requirement for their people to be able to come to our country quite freely, as they can with the accelerated migration policy under CETA. Under that free trade deal, the Canadian people have the ability to come into parts of the European Union. It is a myth to think that this is about trade, because a huge part of it is about immigration.
Mr Leslie
Absolutely. The right hon. Lady has taken the words out of my mouth. I would love to see the Government’s draft free trade agreement with India. I hope that there are fantastic manufactured goods or widgets that the British want to sell and could sell to India, but I suspect that the Indian economy is quite adept at producing widgets of its own and probably at quite a low cost. If the Indians are going to buy anything from us, they will buy services—services are about people; they are people-to-people businesses—and the Indians will naturally say, “Well, we’ll do you a deal, but it has to involve the movement of people.” All hon. Members will need to think about the downstream consequences of that and about how our constituents might respond. Such an agreement would be perfectly reasonable, but this is a much bigger question.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in drafting and moving all these new clauses. Does he remember that when the Prime Minister visited India, the No. 1 topic on the Indians’ agenda was relaxing our immigration rules? How does that square with the Prime Minister’s immigration targets and her ambitions on Brexit?
Mr Leslie
We are due imminently to see the immigration Bill—the Minister will tell us exactly when it will be introduced to Parliament—and the draft agreement that the Secretary of State for International Trade has drawn up with the Indian Government, and we will be able to make a judgment on that at that point.
Ian Murray
Before my hon. Friend moves away from India, may I draw his attention to the Scotch whisky industry? I am sure we will all partake of some of that industry’s goods during the next few weeks of the festive period. The Scotch whisky industry has flourished on the basis of free trade deals done through the EU, such as the one with Korea, but this Government are planning to walk away from those 57 EU bilateral trade agreements and try to reach free trade agreements with countries such as India, which will want to maintain its 150% tariff on Scotch whisky.
Mr Leslie
Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes his point well. The idea is that we should turn a blind eye to the trading arrangements we have with our nearest neighbours—50% of our markets—in pursuit, as an alternative or substitute, of some deal with far-flung countries a lot further away, but Australia accounts for 2% or 3% of our current trade and a deal with Australia will not offset many of these problems. It is not just the 50% that we have directly with our nearest neighbours. All those free trade agreements that the European Union has worked up and signed, to which we have been a party, over the past 40 years add up to a further 14% of our trade. So going on for two thirds of our trade is tied into the customs union process—36 bilateral free trade agreements with 63 different countries. How shall we ensure that they continue the day after we exit?
Mr Leslie
I will not give way; other Members want to speak.
The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade has said, “These can be grandfathered; they can be cut and pasted and we will just sort all those out,” and junior Ministers at the Department for International Trade have said in the past, “Those countries have all agreed to roll them over.” That is not the case. Maybe a bit of dialogue has begun, but those other countries might want to take the opportunity to reopen some of those long-standing agreements—who knows? The Minister will give us the answers when he winds up the debate.
Mr Leslie
I want to conclude my remarks because others want to speak. I simply want to make a final point about why the customs union is such a crucial issue, and why I urge my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and hon. Members across the House to think about the consequences of not staying in the customs union.
If this country ends up with hard borders again, there will be big consequences. Our ports could grind to a halt. Lorries will clog up our motorways, with, potentially, vast lorry parks near the ports. The expensive, wasteful spending on bureaucratic checks will hurt our industries, and we ought to be evaluating the economic impact of industries, potentially, gradually relocating elsewhere because it is easier to do business in a different jurisdiction. Think of the jobs lost, particularly in the manufacturing sector, if we get this wrong. Bear in mind that we will not have any say on what happens on the EU side of the border after this whole process. There is no guarantee about what happens at the other end of the channel tunnel or in Calais.
The reason I have pushed new clause 13 as I have, is to do with the austerity that we risk in this country for the next decade—a decade of Brexit austerity that will potentially befall many of our constituents because of the lost revenues. Unless we stay in the single market and the customs union, we will have that austerity on our conscience, and I urge hon. Members, especially all my hon. Friends, to think very seriously. We have to make sure we stay in the customs union.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
It was a pleasure to listen to the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie). It is like a vintage wine—it improves with age as one hears it on repeated occasions, with mild variations.
Mr Baker
I will not give way now, because I have been on my feet for 22 minutes, and there are, I think, 53 amendments and new clauses to deal with. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman a little later.
I turn to the long series of amendments that are designed, in one way or another, to oblige the Government to publish reports or assessments on specific areas or issues, some in advance of exit day. They are new clauses 31 to 33, 40 to 44, 46, 47, 71, 72, 82, 84 and 85, and amendments 85, 86 and 219 to 221. It is in no one’s interest for the Government to provide a running commentary on the wide range of analysis that they are doing until it is ready to support the parliamentary process in the established way. All the amendments and new clauses I have mentioned share one common flaw. Ministers have a specific responsibility, which Parliament has endorsed, not to release information that would expose our negotiating position. The amendments and new clauses risk doing precisely that. I commend the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is in his place. I thought that his speech was an interesting reflection of his own experience.
The risks and difficulties are easily illustrated by looking at some of the specific reports that are called for. New clause 42 asks for a report on severance payments for employees of EU agencies, but that is not a matter for the UK Government. The right to severance pay is a matter for the EU agencies, although we hope and expect that they would honour any relevant commitments to their employees.
New clause 48 calls for a strategy for the certification of UK and EU medical devices by UK bodies so that the UK can maintain a close co-operative relationship with the EU in the field of medicines regulation. That is of course our aim: we intend such a strategy to form a key part of our deep and special future partnership with the EU.
New clause 71, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), seeks to require a Minister to report before exit day on the Government’s progress in negotiating mutual market access for financial and professional services. I understand his motivations in wanting this information to be published. We are working to reach an agreement on the final deal in good time before we leave the EU in March 2019.
Mr Leslie
This is an incredibly important Bill. New clause 13 would keep open the option for the United Kingdom to stay in the customs union, which is something I hope particularly my hon. Friends will support. We must avoid that hard border, particularly between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We do not want our manufacturing industry to be turned upside down, given all the jobs at stake and the potential of Brexit austerity hitting our constituents for years to come. I do not want that on my conscience. We have to act now, which is why I shall press new clause 13 to a Division.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.