Duties of Customs

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

With deep pleasure, I beg to move amendment (e), in paragraph (a), after “goods”, insert

“other than goods originating from the European Union”.

I will also speak to amendment (f). Both amendments stand in my name and the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

Let me first say to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) that, although I did not agree with a word he said, I thought he made a good speech. However, while he and I have always disagreed on the European Union and we respect each other’s position—I am very much an elected Member of Parliament who wishes to stay in the EU; I am pro-European Union and he is very much anti-European Union—I have to point out to him the complete intellectual incoherence of the two arguments he makes. He says we can leave the single market, the customs union and European Union and have a frictionless, seamless, invisible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but during the Scottish independence referendum campaign, he argued that leaving the UK single market would result in a hard border in goods, services and the movement of people. He does the fight against the scourge of independence in Scotland no good by making those contradictory arguments. Many of the arguments that our colleagues in the Scottish National party make about staying in the European Union and working with our closest colleagues and neighbours with regard to trade in goods and free movement of people completely contradict their arguments on coming out of the UK single market. These positions are contradictory, and I warn politicians that when they play with fire, they get burned.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I bring the hon. Gentleman back to amendment (e), to which he is the lead signatory? It would close off options and prevent us from imposing any tariffs on goods from the EU. The hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) described such closing off of options as “pathological”. The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) always strikes me as a very nice chap; does he share my concern that his own Front-Bench spokesman thinks that amendment (e) is pathological?

[Ian Murray]

I anticipated that intervention, although not quite so early in my speech. I return the hon. Gentleman’s compliments—he is one of the nicest gentlemen in this House. The Labour party’s position on the customs union is that we want the UK to have tariff-free access to the European Union throughout the transition period, with the added option of the UK staying in the customs union. That is the position of our Front-Bench team. It is perfectly clear and chimes perfectly well with amendments (e) and (f).

I am disappointed that the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) were not selected. She has done a lot of work to bring the Ways and Means motion to the House, and I think the arguments advanced reflect the fact that we both want our country to stay in the single market and the customs union, not for ideological reasons, but because we know that the businesses of Aberdeen North and Aberdeen South require us to stay. It is impossible to suggest that the United Kingdom should have exactly the same benefits of the single market and the customs union, with a frictionless border and tariff-free access, but not keep the customs union and the single market on the table. It makes no sense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful for that intervention. I said earlier that nobody voted in the EU referendum to be poorer, yet all the analysis shows that we will be. I would be delighted, if the Minister wants to intervene, if he can point to any analysis done internally, externally or otherwise—by any other Government in any country, any think-tank, any organisation, any business organisation, any individual business—saying that what the Government are offering will make the country better off. I will let him intervene now—I know he is listening; he is just pretending to ignore me. The answer is: absolutely none. The silence is deafening. Not even the producers of our microphones will make more money, because the Minister refuses even to use his to point to just one organisation that says our position will be even remotely similar once we have left the EU. The answer is clearly none. The Government are on the wrong track and gambling everything—the family silver, everything—on a no-deal scenario.

On the impact of our leaving the customs union, I want to deal with a few particular sectors. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) mentioned the automotive sector earlier. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which is an organisation whose briefings on Budgets and Bills we, as parliamentarians, trust and which I always read with great interest—it is the knowledge in motor manufacturing —has said that going off the cliff and moving to trading on WTO rules would see a 10% tariff on vehicles and an average 4.5% tariff on car components. These figures have been repeated in the House ad nauseam. It also said it would push the cost of an average car up by £1,500. We have already heard figures recently showing new car sales and levels of new car manufacturing dropping dramatically. I think that most people considering whether to buy a new car would decide not to if they knew it was costing an additional £1,500. I appreciate that the Minister does not agree, but I am more likely to believe the SMMT’s figures than the Government at the Dispatch Box saying, “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right on the night”, without giving us any detail about how that could possibly operate in the context of no customs union and no customs arrangements.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Is the hon. Gentleman happy, then, for us to be locked for all time into a situation where we can never make a free trade deal with any country, bloc or anybody outside the EU, locked into a body with a declining share of trade and locked out of free trade deals with the growing markets in Asia and America? He is happy with that, is he?

[Ian Murray]

I am happy with the intervention—I am delighted with it—because it allows me to say three things: first, the reason the Scotch whisky industry is doing so well is partly because of EU free trade arrangements, particularly with countries such as South Korea; secondly, we are already in 57 free trade agreements; and thirdly, the hon. Gentleman’s Government have failed wholeheartedly to start to negotiate just one free trade agreement, despite all the bluff and bluster about being at the front of the queue, about their happening easily, about our seamlessly entering into these wonderful free trade agreements all over the world.

I say also to the hon. Gentleman that his intervention completely contradicts his first intervention. If he votes against my amendment and we end up trading with WTO rules, and we end up without tariffs with the EU, we will have tariffs with no one and we will ride the waves—rule Britannia—setting up more than 57 free trade agreements with every country banging at our door to trade with us. He is not listening to his Foreign Secretary or Trade Secretary when they say this is becoming much more difficult, if he thinks that free trade agreements with more than 57 countries will just appear as low-hanging fruit from this magic money tree the Government seem always to produce.