Leaving the EU: North-East Exports

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I am delighted to head up that galaxy of parliamentary talent, as you so eloquently put it, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing the debate. As he says, I am sure there will be many more such debates and opportunities to drill down and have an ongoing conversation. If the Government are not going to have an ongoing commentary on the EU, we Back Benchers certainly will.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the UK’s relationship with the EU is significant for the north-east, which in 2015 exported £7 billion of goods to the EU—58% of its total, which is well above the UK average of 48%. This debate is about the north-east, but I hope he and you, Mr Hollobone, will indulge me if I touch a little on the impact on Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The value of the pound has dropped significantly since the announcement of the referendum result. Although that offers a short-term gain for some, such as those looking to buy property in the UK, increasingly expensive imports and exports will hurt the UK and all the countries in it in the long term. I noted with interest the Financial Times article yesterday that stated that the percentage of foreign buyers in London’s property market had increased from 23% to 29%. It seems obvious to me that that creates further problems for local people, who were already struggling to get on the property ladder. Not only are their savings being devalued by the falling pound, but they will be up against an increasing number of foreign buyers and investors. The weakening of the pound since the Brexit vote has helped Tata Steel’s profits, but as we well know, such companies rely on imported iron ore and coking coal, so they will be negatively affected if tariffs increase in the longer term.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the impact on Nissan’s Sunderland factory, which ships nearly 75% of its cars to the EU and relies on parts from outside the UK. The north-east economy cannot flourish without the automotive industry, or even with a damaged one. Failing to negotiate trade deals quickly will cause repercussions years down the line. I suggest that the Tory Government’s much-vaunted northern powerhouse is fast becoming more of a northern power cut.

Scotland will feel the impact of the UK leaving the customs union just as the north-east will. In 2014, 42% of Scotland’s international exports were to the EU, and 58% of Scottish exports to the EU are in the food, tobacco and beverage manufacturing industries. I have spoken to several companies in those industries and will address some of their concerns shortly. Last year in Scotland alone, there were more than 2,300 foreign owned companies, employing nearly 314,000 people and turning over £90 billion. When the Government create uncertainty for those companies—I know there will be others in the north-east—hundreds of thousands of workers are uncertain about their futures.

With such uncertainty, it is not unreasonable to ask for a clear plan and an open debate. At the moment, we are expected simply to have faith in the Government—a Government who promised to double exports to £1 trillion by the end of the decade but saw them fall to £511 billion just last year. If those numbers are moving in the wrong direction, how are we to believe that the EU trade negotiations will move in the right direction for the UK economy and its workers, especially given that at a recent European Council meeting, the Prime Minister was given just five minutes—at 1 am, after the dinner plates had been cleared—to set out her view on Britain’s exit from the EU?

We had a debate on the Government’s industrial strategy just last week. The conclusions could not have been clearer. It is nearly impossible to debate industry, trade and the economy when the Government have neither the outline nor an inkling of a plan. There is a lot that we need to debate about the impact on the north-east and Scotland, and I hope we will have many more such debates and the opportunity properly to scrutinise the plans when they come forward.

Let us take the UK’s membership of the EU customs union and common tariff. Beyond the party political and theoretical points are some gritty IT issues that need to be looked at more closely—we know about the UK Government’s track record on IT. If Britain leaves the EU customs union, it will have to go through its own system of customs declarations and security checks whenever trading with the EU. After the Brexit vote, the EU began looking at increasing its capacity for customs declarations from 50 million to 350 million a year to account for future customs forms from the UK. Changing that system will take time, and before it is finalised we will not know how delays will be managed. I recently met the Scotch Whisky Association, which emphasised the importance of the excise movement and control system, a trading system by which all exports are tracked and managed. Staying part of that is key, but we have had no answers about it. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us.

On the other side, the UK’s current system for importing and exporting non-EU products, which following Brexit will have to be used for all products, is about 25 years old and due to be replaced. However, its replacement, the customs declaration services system, is expected to be functioning by December 2018, just before the UK is expected officially to leave the EU. The CDS system is designed for managing about 100 million declarations a year, rather than the now expected 350 million that will be required once the UK leaves the European Union. That puts us two years behind already.

Desmond Hiscock, who runs the UK Association for International Trade, said that the system

“will not be able to cope and there is not much confidence that the untested and still incomplete replacement…will fare much better.”

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am listening to the hon. Lady’s remarks with great interest. She will be aware that two Members of the House who represent constituencies in the north-east also want to contribute and that, within 30 seconds, she is coming up to having used a third of the allocated Back-Bench time. She might, out of politeness, want to think about drawing her remarks to a close.

[Hannah Bardell]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I will wrap up my comments, because of course I want to let colleagues in. If the Prime Minister truly wants to find the best trade deal for the north-east and for the rest of the UK, she would do well to engage actively across all parties and all countries within the UK.