Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Stephen Hammond

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Lady knows that a wholly-owned subsidiary is created as a legal entity. It is 100% owned by NHS organisations. It is also the case that local trust board members sit on the boards of those subsidiary entities. It is therefore appropriate that the local organisation takes that decision.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (LD)]

The King’s Fund says that the earnings threshold in the Government’s immigration proposals, which was mentioned earlier, will definitely impact on the ability to retain and attract NHS staff. The proposals for a transition period during which many social care workers would only be allowed to come here for a limited time with no entitlement to bring dependants will, again, negatively impact on the ability to retain staff. When will this Government realise that immigration is good for our public services and good for our country, and that badly thought out policy in this area that impacts on the retention of NHS staff is wrong and nonsensical?

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right—immigration has benefited the national health service. This Minister, this Secretary of State and this ministerial team celebrate the fact that global immigration has benefited the NHS. From 2021, the new system will allow people with skills to come to the UK from anywhere in the world. It will remove the cap on skilled migrants, abolish the requirement to undertake the resident labour market test, and should improve the timeliness of being able to apply for a visa.

Leaving the EU: Customs Arrangements

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Stephen Hammond

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond]

My right hon. and learned Friend is correct. I think that he has made the point several times in this place and in others that there has been a misunderstanding and a failure to comprehend exactly what the EU Commission is. It is a legal body that takes its instructions from others, and therefore its ability to deviate too much in those negotiations until its instructions are changed means that we have failed to understand how we should have been negotiating initially. Now that the plan is there, I am hopeful that we will see more progress.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my fellow south Londoner for giving way. I know this is a debate about customs, but my biggest issue with the Prime Minister’s proposals is that they do not cover most of the economy, which is services. On customs, however, I have a couple of questions.

First, does he know of any example of where the EU has allowed a third county to collect customs duties on its behalf? The hon. Gentleman has talked about the importance of the rules. Secondly, although I appreciate his comments welcoming the proposals, they are also based on “to be invented” technology to resolve the Irish border issue. Unless that technology is invented and can work, I do not see how it will be able to resolve that conundrum.

[Stephen Hammond]

I will deal with my fellow south Londoner’s latter point first. I agree with him on technology. There needs to be a system in place. We may move to a technological solution, but, as I said a few moments ago, it is clearly not there at the moment, or it has not been tested on this sort of scale yet.

Secondly, I do not know of any such example, and that will obviously be challenging to the rulebook, but that does not mean that we should not put the proposition forward and therefore I respect what the Government are trying to do in that regard.

As for services, which the hon. Gentleman was clearly talking about and is 80% of the UK’s exports and economy, my hope is—I am not sure whether the Minister will be able to say so today, but it is my hope—that the White Paper may give some hints about how the Government will put in place their enhanced equivalence regime, and the proposals for that, which the Chancellor mentioned in a speech at a different Mansion House event just recently. So I hope that we will hear some news on that in the near future.

Let me go back to the idea of free trade arrangements and free trade agreements. The Treasury Committee had the privilege of going to Washington in April and we met a number of American free trade or trade arrangement negotiators. Everybody I spoke to was excited about doing a deal with the United Kingdom, which is good news. Why were they so excited? Because they told us, frankly and openly, that they can dictate the terms they want, they will get whatever they want and any agreement will give their producers unfettered access to our markets.

We have to be careful, because no one is asking the right question. Of course people want to do deals with us; why would they not want to? The question is this: on what terms of trade will those deals be done? If someone can tell me the answer to that question, I will happily sit down and conclude my remarks now.

European Free Trade Association

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Stephen Hammond

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond]

As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend makes the point rather better than I can. It is absolutely clear that that is implicit and, based on the evidence we heard in the Treasury Committee, explicit in what the Government signed or agreed to at the end of phase 1 of the negotiations in December.

EFTA provides a great deal of flexibility, as we have explored in a number of interventions. It keeps open the option of joining the EEA agreement, which I think would be the right thing to do. However, it must be right that, as we leave the EU, we keep our options open. I say to the Minister in all sincerity that there is a lack of clarity over exactly what type of deal the Government want. We talked about CETA and beyond, and as I said a moment ago, CETA is the most advanced trade agreement that the EU has yet signed with a third country. I understand that the Government want to go beyond that, but the clock is ticking, and in trying to spend a huge amount of time carving out a middle ground between CETA and the EEA, the chances are that we may end up with nothing at all, or with something well below the Government’s ambitions.

It seems to me that an EFTA-style EEA relationship—the Norway option—could be achieved rapidly and will go much further than CETA goes at the moment. That is a route we could pursue for the UK’s best interest, and it must not be allowed to be dismissed without proper analysis and consideration.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. First, with regard to CETA, one reason why that kind of relationship would not be appropriate for the UK is that CETA substantially covers goods, whereas 80% of our economy is services. Secondly, as he may come on to, one of the objections raised to our being part of EFTA, and using that as a way of accessing and being part of the EEA, is that we would be a rule receiver as opposed to a rule maker. Does he agree that it is wrong to say that EEA and EFTA members have no influence on the rules that apply? Does he also agree that if we want to access the single market, we will have to comply with its rules, and that we are more likely to be able to frame those rules if we are part of the EEA, through EFTA, than if we are sitting outside and simply accessing the single market through a free trade agreement?

[Stephen Hammond]

I of course agree with the hon. Gentleman. I am about to make exactly those points, because it is important that they are made loud and clear. As he will know and will have observed, I have spent a lot of time in the Chamber over the last two years making the case for services, which is one of our biggest tax generators. The public services that we all enjoy will not be able to be funded in the same way if we do not protect those services. As he will have wanted to point out, the EFTA arrangement covers services in many cases, whereas CETA, for instance, does not. That is a clear issue that the Government will have to confront.

The EFTA-EEA framework is motivated purely by the economy and not the pursuit of a political objective such as ever closer union. It is crucial that people remember that. The EEA would give the UK the same access to the single market as it has now for most goods and services. It is an off-the-shelf, already tested model that would provide businesses and our citizens with the most certainty that we can give them as we leave the EU. Yes, we would be subject to EEA regulation, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) pointed out, it does not cover the controversial common agricultural and common fisheries policies or justice and home affairs. From the outset—to allay the concerns of some of my hon. Friends—we would have control of those policy areas.

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[Stephen Hammond]

They would.

[Chuka Umunna]

They would.