Leaving the EU: Customs Arrangements

Heidi Allen Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond]

Again the hon. Gentleman guesses what I was about to say next. I was using the ports of Dover and Calais as examples of ports across the United Kingdom. Of course, it would also require restrictions and a border infrastructure to be in place between the two ports he mentions.

Over the last few years, some people have called that project fear, but the reality is that we are facing risks to our economy and to people’s jobs. In the last two weeks, businesses such as Airbus and Jaguar Land Rover have been increasingly vocal about these events and the risks. A recent Institute of Directors poll found that business leaders want a post-Brexit customs arrangement that avoids the new customs processes and maximises EU market access by minimising regulatory divergence. Warnings from big employers and investors in the UK should not be ignored, and certainly not by a Government who are committed to protecting jobs and enhancing employment opportunities.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

On that point, it is important for everyone to recognise that although big businesses can be noisy and have press contacts, the way that business filters through like a food chain means that they provide work for medium-sized businesses, who provide work for small businesses. As a country, we would be completely foolish to risk fundamentally changing the way we deal with our existing EU customers without having a clue about what the new customers in the rest of the world might want. We have to find a way to preserve frictionless trade with our existing customers if we want to protect our economy.

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. The supply chain provides jobs in all sorts of areas across the country. It is not just the big employers, but the thousands of people who are employed in their supply chain. For a small firm, the bureaucracy of restrictions such as rules of origin requirements and certificates, will be so extreme that some of them are likely to go out of business. We need to realise that.

We need a solution to those problems that protects jobs and businesses, that reflects the realities at ports, that avoids a border in Ireland and that can be fully enforced by the end of the implementation period. It is no good just relying on the technology being there, because at the moment it does not exist or it has never been tested on anything like that scale.

I am not sure that I am in universal agreement with all hon. Members, but I welcome the Chequers plan as a sensible proposal. As with everything, it will be in the detail, and as I said earlier, we are in a slight vacuum at the moment because the White Paper’s timely publication will be important, but it is not yet with us. One ambiguous area is the suggestion that maintaining frictionless trade with the EU will limit our ability to pursue new free trade deals. I will leave it to the Minister to explain exactly how those proposals will ensure that we can keep the option of free trade open.

The Government’s proposal is a welcome step towards at least recognising the economic reality that will hit us. I do not want to say that the debate has secured all the answers yet, because we will have the White Paper, but I will say that the Brexit debate has not yet faced up to some of the inevitable trade-offs between different rules around the world. If barriers are removed somewhere, they will almost certainly be put up somewhere else. That is the consequence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak in debates, Mr Streeter, no matter what the issue may be, but, as a Brexiteer, I will give an opinion that might not go down well with others in this Hall. However, it is my opinion and that of many in my party. We are where we are and we have to try to find a way forward. I am very much one of those guys who tries to find a way forward. Coming from Northern Ireland and from a political background, and understanding the political process of where we have got to, I feel that if there is a will to find a way forward, we can find it. I want to express my thoughts in a constructive fashion, and hopefully other Members will appreciate what I try to say.

First, I thank the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) for securing this debate and allowing me the opportunity to speak in it. He succinctly and purposefully put forward his viewpoint, as other Members have done. With the increased uncertainty regarding the bill for our leaving Europe, it is more important than ever that we remember what people voted for when they voted to leave in June 2016. I am clear about what I and the constituency of Strangford voted for: we voted to leave by 56% to 44%. I am very clear about that.

I asked the Prime Minister a question yesterday on fishing, which is important for my constituency, and she answered it. I hope Members get a chance to read it. One could not be anything but clear about what the Prime Minister said in relation to fishing. I am reassured by her response to my question. The Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), is interested in fishing issues and I know he will have taken note of that. That is something on which he and I would be on the same wavelength; we are probably both encouraged by it.

People did not vote to straddle the EU and the UK, for outside influence in law making to be countenanced, or to retain residual membership of Europe. They voted to leave. I voted to leave, and my constituents voted to leave. That is the principle on which everything we do must be based. I understand that the complexities are incredible. I look on everyone in the Chamber as friends and colleagues, and sometimes we differ in our opinions and the way we look at things, but the right hon. and hon. Members present want, as I do, to find a way to an agreement and understanding with Europe.

[Heidi Allen]

The hon. Gentleman is right that a 52% to 48% result has to look like a compromise that the whole country and Parliament can somehow find a way to get behind, so does he agree that the Prime Minister’s outline proposals from Chequers go some way towards that? They would satisfy him as to what is needed for the fishing industry; but I will never forget the unemployment figures given by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). Surely the hon. Gentleman must agree that the right proposals will safeguard all the industries in question, and that they must include close alignment to something like the customs union.