European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

New clause 13 goes further and seeks for the UK to remain a full member of the customs union in perpetuity. We are not seeking to remain a member of the customs union or the single market. We will be seeking an arrangement that works for the whole of the United Kingdom. We want this to include a new, mutually beneficial customs agreement with the EU, and we want to see zero tariffs on trading goods, and to minimise the regulatory and market access barriers for both goods and services. In any event, it simply is not possible for provisions in domestic legislation to have binding effect at the international level. We will leave the customs union when we leave the EU. Domestic legislation cannot implement unilaterally what would require international agreement.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

The Minister, and the Prime Minister for that matter, repeatedly say that businesses will only have to plan for one set of changes. Given that businesses currently benefit from being part of the single market and the customs union, how can it possibly be the case, as the Prime Minister has also said, that we are coming out of the customs union and the single market during the so-called implementation period?

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Lady tempts me to dilate on the details of the implementation period, which are to be negotiated, but that is not my purpose today, because it is not the purpose of this Bill. The purpose of this Bill is to deliver a functioning statute book as we leave the European Union.

With that in mind, I turn to new clauses 10 and 54 on the transitional or implementation period. Both new clauses seek to impose conditions on what form the implementation period the Government are seeking will take. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe for his new clause, which attempts to write the Prime Minister’s vision for an implementation period into statute. That would be a novel constitutional change. Nevertheless, I welcome it in the sense that it is a ringing endorsement of Government policy. New clause 10, however, differs in some key regards from our vision.

The Government cannot accept these new clauses. The Prime Minister has set out a proposal that is now subject to negotiation. We are confident of reaching that agreement, but it would not be sensible for the Government to constrain themselves domestically in any way while those negotiations continue. We are making good progress, and it is in our mutual interests to conclude a good agreement that works for everyone. We do not want to put the legislative cart before the diplomatic horse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baker]

My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General has just confirmed to me that we do not want that to happen. I am sure that that will be given further consideration, along with the issue of general principles that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has raised.

[Heidi Alexander]

rose—

[Mr Baker]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then I really will move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister’s stream of thought and taking him back to his response to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), but can he rule out, from the Dispatch Box today, returning to amendment 7 on Report?

[Mr Baker]

I refer to the answer I gave earlier. At this point, I can tell the hon. Lady that I am not expecting to return to it, but we are reflecting on the implications of the amendment. We made a strong case for the powers at the Dispatch Box and are reflecting on it. I say to her, however, and to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield that we are not expecting at this point to return to it. [Interruption.] She asks what that means. We have been in close conversation with my right hon. and learned Friend, and I feel sure that those conversations will continue, but I say to the rest of the Committee that I am going to focus on the amendments before me.