Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

That is certainly not the way forward. I can assure my right hon. Friend that we are doing everything we can to plan for all eventualities. That is why I am taking through a large number of statutory instruments to take account of all possibilities next year, but we are working on, and focused on, achieving a good deal.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

There is no estimate in the Red Book for the benefits to tax revenues of the measures that we took in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. Is that because Ministers are holding that money in their back pocket in case of a no deal?

EU Customs Union and Draft Withdrawal Agreement: Cost

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Government’s own statistics show that leaving with no deal would put unemployment in the north-east up to 20%. What is their calculation of the effect on unemployment in the north-east of leaving the customs union?

[John Glen]

There are a range of assumptions around the implications of different scenarios. The Government seek to ensure that we minimise the downsides and maximise the upsides in the agreement that we come to. I recognise that significant industries in the north-east rely on certainty in that relationship, and that is why it is very important that we get it right.

Food Labelling and Allergy-Related Deaths

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

Absolutely. As a parent, one can barely consider what they must have gone through during those hours on the flight and afterwards.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Speaking as one who always has to carry two epipens, I think that the Government need to take a wider view. Please could the review also include restaurant food, and will the Minister talk to his colleagues in the Department of Health about better training for medics and paramedics and more research into this growing crisis?

[David Rutley]

Yes, it does need to be wide. Yes, we need to involve other areas such as training for paramedics. We need to make sure that there is much better information and training. It is very serious, and I will make sure that that happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course he was the Secretary of State for Transport who led many of these important investments. In the east midlands, we are investing in the smart motorway, in the upgrade to the east coast main line, in Derby bus station and in new green buses in Nottingham. The list continues, and only because of this Government’s management of the public finances, which is keeping the economy growing.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I have tried to list all the places where the pilgrim fathers came from. I was not aware that some came from Immingham as well, but I am sure that that will be included in the celebrations.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Discussion of DDCMS support for the Mayflower celebrations raises the problem that DDCMS regional funding is deeply unfair, with far more in London. Indeed, that is the pattern on infrastructure, which the Minister was talking about before. So to what extent does the Minister believe that unfair patterns of Government spending are the cause of the fact that household income in the north-east is only £15,000 per year, whereas in London it is £27,000?

[Robert Jenrick]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Arts Council has a formula to distribute funding across the country. We believe, like she does, that it is important that all communities in this country can have access to culture and heritage. It is for that reason and others that we funded the Great Exhibition of the North, which has been a huge success; and of course the Chancellor, in his Budget two years ago, supported the huge economic and cultural opportunity of restoring Wentworth Woodhouse, near to the hon. Lady’s constituency.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. The time limit will have to be reduced, with immediate effect, to five minutes.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I wish to speak to new clause 11 and against amendment 73.

Last week, we had a debate in Westminster Hall in which the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who is back in his place, advised me that everything would become clear when the White Paper was published. I am afraid that for me, 70 minutes before we are going to vote, Government policy is still not quite clear. I am going to ask the Minister a few questions in the hope that we might get some clarification from him. I am interested in the interrelationship between the Bill and the White Paper, which was published last week.

Contrary to what some right hon. and hon. Members wish to say, the common market, which is the customs union, is fantastically popular with the public. Whenever I ask my constituents, “What do you dislike about Europe?”, they say, “Being bossed around”, and “The immigration.” When I say, “What do you like about it?”, they say, “Oh, we love the common market.” Well, of course, the common market is the customs union. When I talk to industrialists, what they want—in the words of GlaxoSmithKline, which employs 1,000 people in my constituency—is “no disruption”. PPG Industries, which is a supplier to Airbus, wants a common rule book. When I spoke this morning to the North East chamber of commerce, it said that 90% of its members want to stay in the customs union. We know that legally speaking that is not possible, so we have to have a new one that will give them the “exact same benefits”.

I am not clear about whether the Bill facilitates the customs approach that is set out in the White Paper. Nor am I clear about which of the Government’s amendments have made changes to the Bill that will enable them to undertake the facilitated customs arrangement that they have described in the White Paper. Nor am I clear—I very much hope that the Minister will be able to explain this; I am sure that he now will be—about whether the Government’s proposed acceptance of amendments from the ERG means that they are abandoning the facilitated customs arrangement as their opening position or that they are still holding to it. If they are still holding to it, I would suggest that it is not wholly practical. It will need a tracking system so that when people import goods, they know where their final use is going to be. This is a whole new bureaucratic system. It means that people who import will have to have information along the supply chain that, at the moment, is of no concern to them. The White Paper says that there is going to be a formula so that we can follow the proportions from the past year, but what if things change from one year to another? Then people will have to make their rebates on the basis of new, fresh information in real time. It sounds very much as though we are going to have not only VAT but VAT mark 2.

Paragraph 20 on page 18 of the White Paper says:

“This could include looking to make it easier for traders to lodge information…This could include exploring how machine learning and artificial intelligence could allow traders to automate…This could…include exploring how allowing data sharing across borders”

would work. It could include rather a lot of things. I can only imagine officials saying to Ministers when they were drafting this, “This does seem to involve rather a lot of imagination.” It does not seem to be bottomed out. I would much prefer it if we could go along the path set out by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench in new clause 11, because what is being proposed will be horrendously bureaucratic and an open invitation to smuggling.

[Mr Grieve]

There is one matter on which I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and that is that this piece of legislation is needed if we are leaving the EU. That is the first basic point that needs to be made in considering this Bill on Report.

Then one has to consider why the Report stage becomes so controversial. The difficulty is that throughout the whole of this Brexit process, we are collectively going through an exercise in both deception and self-deception about the implications of leaving the European Union and the sort of relationship we may have thereafter.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has produced a White Paper. It is far from perfect. It, too, continues with some of those obfuscations, I have to say. To give an example—I know that this has irritated many of my right hon. and hon. Friends—it talks about the common rulebook and then says, “Don’t worry—we will be escaping the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.” We may escape its jurisdiction, but I am the first to accept that the reality is that we are going to be bound by its jurisprudence, without any ability to influence how that jurisprudence develops. That is one of the costs that we are paying as a result of deciding to leave.

In exactly the same way, there are other costs that come from leaving and that we tend to brush under the carpet, including the economic costs that are going to come to this country. If we are going to make rational choices, we need to avoid continuing with exercises in self-deception. The reason I think it right to support the Prime Minister on the White Paper is that despite all the difficulties she has had, this represents the first sensible document to found a proper negotiation. I wish her well with it, even if I have criticisms of it, worry about the absence of services and a common market for that, and worry about some of its other aspects; nevertheless, it is well-intentioned.

Then I look at the four amendments tabled by some of my hon. Friends—36, 37, 72 and 73. The first thing to be said about them is that one—the one about Northern Ireland—correctly identifies an obfuscation that the Government have been practising for a considerable time. We and the European Commission are talking different languages when it comes to the backstop. I have no difficulty emphasising the fact that no Parliament of the United Kingdom is ever going to support a backstop that goes simply for Northern Ireland alone.

Leaving the EU: Customs Arrangements

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) on securing the debate. We serve together on the Treasury Committee and he has presented a typically thorough and well-grounded case for our having frictionless trade and preferably for being in a customs union. I will make a few remarks based on the experience of businesses in my constituency and then ask the Minister a couple of questions.

My constituency in County Durham has a lot of manufacturing and some agriculture, and people in both those areas are interested in the customs arrangements. We do not have significant service sector exporting. I have people who work in the Nissan factory in Sunderland and in small engineering firms that supply the factory. I have a GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical plant, which employs 1,000 people, and PPG, a supplier of coolants and sealants to Airbus, which employs 200 people. What north-east manufacturers are concerned about is frictionless trade and regulatory alignment. Those are their top two priorities.

The north-east chamber of commerce has done a great deal of work with the Department for Exiting the European Union and I am sorry to say that up until now it has been disappointed with the Department’s response. The chamber sent people to train departmental officials, and as the process of the last two years has gone on those officials have become so demoralised that more of them have left the Department than have used the knowledge the chamber gave them. A fortnight ago, the chamber’s chief executive, James Ramsbottom, said that political chaos was reducing business confidence.

We all hope that the Chequers agreement is a step forward—I think it is—but we would like to see a few more steps taken in the north-east. The Government’s assessment has shown that the region would be the part of the country worst hit by a hard Brexit, with a 16% fall in output and unemployment shooting up to a quarter of a million. That would be more people unemployed in our region as a result of a no-deal Brexit than we had in the depths of the recession in the 1980s, when the steel industry and coal mining were being closed left, right and centre.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon pointed out very well the reality. This is what my constituents say to me about the significance of the gravity model: it is expensive to move components around the world. People cannot start importing from Thailand at the same cost as they import from the Netherlands. I urge the Minister to go back to his colleagues with the message that we have to get away from this unicorn Brexit.

As well as wanting frictionless trade, people want no disruption to current systems. I will use examples from each of the firms I mentioned in asking the Minister to explain how a system using one bureaucratic set of rules for imported goods and another exported goods will work. I simply do not understand how that distinction will be made.

Nissan gets components in as part of its integrated supply chain and makes cars. It sells some cars in the UK, some into the European Union and some into third countries in eastern Europe beyond the EU. When it gets the components, how will it know which will go into which cars to be sold in which places? I just cannot grasp that.

We have the same situation with GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceuticals. The company makes drugs with inputs from Ireland—it is a big multinational with plants all over the world—and sells them across the channel in France. How will it know which packets are being used in England and which in France? Or is it the Government’s idea to just sort of pro rata the sales? How would that work if, for example, there was a flu epidemic in France and not in England? Prediction would not be possible—the figures would have to be worked out post hoc and then people would have to claim money back. I simply do not understand how that would work.

Let me give the third example, of PPG. The company makes a component that goes into an Airbus product but has no control over what Airbus does with its outputs. It does not know whether Airbus is selling into Britain or France or Germany, so how will that work? Ministers are doing their best but they need to do better, and I very much hope that this afternoon the Minister will enlighten us a little more about how precisely this will work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

I point the hon. Lady to her question about the White Paper. There will be more detail to come on just those kinds of questions, and of course much of this will remain to be negotiated. Our estimate is that the vast majority—well in excess of 90%—of goods coming in could be charged directly at the border as an EU good, or would be non-tariff anyway under both EU and UK arrangements, or face the UK tariff accordingly. A very small proportion might fall into the category to which she refers.

[Helen Goodman]

That was the crux of my questions. Listening to the Minister, I realise I perhaps did not formulate it quite as accurately as I should have. The question is not how much comes for one purpose and how much comes for another purpose. The question is how the person importing knows what the purpose will be, and where the final user will be. That is the tricky question. I can see the Minister frowning, so he knows it is tricky as well.

[Mel Stride]

When goods come in and the end-use cannot be determined, we foresee a situation where we might have to charge the higher tariff, with a rebate mechanism in place once the end-user can demonstrate that those goods have indeed been consumed, or found their end-use, in the United Kingdom. As I say, some of those matters will be addressed in the White Paper that will be with us this week.

Hon. Members have rightly mentioned supply chains and the importance of goods and components going in and out of the EU27. The points raised by the hon. Lady in the context of Nissan will be accommodated substantially by the model we are putting forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon mentioned VAT systems. We have made it clear that we are looking in the negotiations to ensure that we have the best of the arrangements that are there at the moment, in terms of systems and making our VAT interactions as smooth as possible, albeit we will look to control rates of VAT. In the recent Budget the Chancellor commented on the abolition of acquisition VAT and the move towards import VAT. We recognise that there are certain cash-flow impositions on the part of business that we will want to take into account.

A number of hon. Members rightly mentioned ports, and I think a couple specifically suggested that a two-minute delay could lead to a 17-mile tailback at Dover. We are, of course, extremely cognisant of that risk, but once again, it applies if we need border and customs arrangements in place at the port of Dover, Holyhead and the other ports that have been mentioned. Under this model, that would clearly not be the case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon also made a point about free trade deals and how the approach of the facilitated customs arrangement would facilitate them. Most importantly, as distinct from being in “the” customs union, or in a customs union with the customs union, we would not operate a common external tariff, so we would be free to set our own tariffs. The fact that we have a common rulebook between ourselves for goods and agricultural products means that the issue of regulatory barriers, which might otherwise be in place for us in doing FTAs and bringing goods into the UK that might then go on to the European Union, would also be substantially resolved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I eagerly await the report’s launch next Wednesday. I will be happy to meet the all-party group and make a judgment about the best outcome on that issue, along with three other streams of work, in the autumn.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Ending tax secrecy in the overseas territories will bring in £10 billion a year. Will the Chancellor organise a lunch for my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the entire Labour Whips Office, who were instrumental in securing this change?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

When I have the money in the bank, I will invite them around for a glass of champagne.

Customs and Borders

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. This is affecting businesses all over the country.

I want to make one final point. I have taken a lot of interventions because I know that many Members will not get the chance to speak later and they want to give their views. I am conscious, however, of the time. Time is running out in the negotiations and the clock is even sharper today.

The final reason given by those who object to a customs union is that it is a point of principle. They say that it is about our sovereignty and that that was at the heart of the Brexit vote. Even if it is bad for us, it is a point of principle that we should be able to set our own tariffs and sign our own trade deals, and that is somehow at the heart of the taking back control that Britain voted for.

I find that argument illogical as well as inaccurate because, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said, any trade treaty involves signing away some sovereignty. Any kind of trade agreement involves legally binding conclusions and an independent dispute resolution procedure, and once the state has signed up to such an agreement, it might not be able to stop, for example, a US company taking contracts with the NHS or whatever we might have signed away as part of it.

Nobody wants to defend a principle of sovereignty whereby we never do any trade agreements with anybody or sign anything away. We should not do that because it would prevent us from getting a good deal with Europe that would help our manufacturing industry.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will not, because I am conscious of time.

We did not do this simply to create a new Department for trade and give certain hon. Members a sign on the door. We did not have the debate so that the only thing we would gain was a label of sovereignty or trade. This has to be about what really happens in communities across the country. I have not heard anyone who voted to leave say that they wanted to hit our manufacturing industry at any cost. I have heard from leave voters, as well as remain voters, who support getting a good manufacturing deal, the Northern Ireland peace process and a customs deal.

This is about the kind of country we want to be. Not for me the kind of country where the only thing that matters is a sign on the door that says, “We do our own trade deals.” Instead, I want a country that supports our manufacturing industry and communities and our historic obligations for peace on the island of Ireland. That is why I support a customs union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Hoey]

The right hon. and learned Member and other Members have said that, and we have to make a lot of changes in this country to ensure that we can do much better than has been the case inside the European Union, but being outside the EU and the customs union will be almost a catalyst by ensuring that our businesses have that opportunity and freedom to do better than they are doing at the moment.

Those people who pushed for the Norway option during the referendum campaign and even since seem to forget that Norway is outside the customs union and is doing well. In fact, when I went to a conference in Norway recently, the feeling among people there was that they wanted to get out of the European economic area as well. They are looking to us to make a successful transition from the EU and they will probably follow us.

[Helen Goodman]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Kate Hoey]

No, I will not give way to my hon. Friend.

I should like to move on to the issue of the border and Northern Ireland. Under the Tony Blair Government, I was one of those who went over and campaigned for a yes vote. I was very keen to see what happened happen, and I pay tribute to all those who made that happen. There is no doubt that there is an issue relating to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but the European Union is seizing on divisions to pursue certain demands that are just not necessary. It is certainly using the Irish border as an issue with regard to the customs union. EU officials recently said that they had systematically and forensically annihilated the Prime Minister’s proposals for a loose customs arrangement, but in fact they did not do that—they simply refused to discuss any creative compromise. They talk down every British proposal, and they are being helped by some in this Parliament who talk down everything positive that is said about what might be done. Proposals are talked down and talked down.

People need to remember that there is already a legal border in Northern Ireland for excise, alcohol, tobacco, fuel duty, VAT, immigration, visas, vehicles, dangerous goods and security. Indeed, the primary function of the hard border of the past was to be a security border, not a customs border. People forget that because they want to forget what happened during those long years of troubles. Today all those border functions are enforced without any physical infrastructure, so adding customs declarations and marginally divergent product standards to the long list of functions that the border already implements invisibly does not require a huge, drastic change to the nature of the border.

Even in the most complicated area—agriculture —the director of animal health and welfare at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already given evidence to Parliament that sanitary and phytosanitary-related risks would not be altered by Brexit from what the authorities are already managing across the border pre-Brexit, and that additional infra- structure at the border would not be needed. There are already cameras—not at the border itself, but further away—and checks are going on all the time. There is intelligence all the time. There is no reason why businesses on both sides of the border that need to move back and forth every day will have any problem.

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[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Gentleman and I have a long history, as we fought the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election against each other in 2006. Today, however, I cannot find a word on which I disagree with him; he is absolutely right. The work of his Select Committee and so many others mean that we can bring this evidence to the fore, and raise the concerns of businesses, the people who work in them and the trade unions in all our constituencies. That is why the work of Select Committees is so important, and it is also why this debate, which was called by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), is so important.

I will now touch on a few pieces of evidence given to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee that really bring home what we are talking about, especially regarding the effects of which we are fearful. Honda, which produces cars in Swindon, said that just a 15-minute delay at the border would cost it £850,000 a year. If hon. Members multiply that by the number of minutes or hours for which goods and components might be delayed, and multiply that across the number of car and component manufacturers in the country, they will get a feel for the sort of impact that we are talking about. It is estimated that Ford would have to fill in 115,000 import declarations at a cost of £35 per declaration for imports from the European Union, resulting in a total cost of £4 million, as well as the additional administrative costs.

[Helen Goodman]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rachel Reeves]

I will just make a little bit of progress.

Diageo uses 11% of Ireland’s cream output every year in the production of Baileys. That is quite a staggering statistic. Some 18,000 trucks cross the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland every year in the production of Baileys. Diageo estimates that delays at the border would cost it £1.3 million a year, and even greater costs in the supporting supply chains. It went on to say that even small hold-ups to the process would be a huge problem.

Both Nestlé and Honda said in evidence to us that companies produce for the market that they are supplying to. Therefore, even if we did secure free trade agreements with Asian and American countries, and others, we would not see a huge increase in jobs and investment here, at least in the sectors that we looked at. Ferrero Rocher told us that 5,000 trucks a year go between the UK and the rest of the European Union. It talked about costly delays and the effect on the freshness of its goods. Businesses said that border delays would be very expensive. Leaving the customs union, they told us, was about damage limitation rather than seeing and forging new opportunities ahead.

My own view is based on the evidence that the Committee has taken, which leads me to a very simple conclusion: we need to remain in a customs union to retain the benefits of frictionless trade that we enjoy today for the good of jobs and investment in our country.

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[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I have sat and listened to some expert speakers this afternoon. As a Member who was elected only last summer, I do not pretend to be an expert on Brexit or its implications, but the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) has just said it all; we have all learned an awful lot over the last 12 months or more. We have to be very good listeners, and that is what I have tried to do since my election.

I have heard from many hon. Members on Select Committees who have listened to businesses. Every single Member who has spoken and quoted what businesses are telling them has supported our remaining in the customs union. Less than two weeks ago, I held a Brexit seminar with local businesses in my constituency, rural High Peak in Derbyshire. I heard their huge concerns not only about leaving the customs union in a year’s time, but about the impact of the uncertainty that is being caused by Brexit and the possibility that we will not be able to continue in the customs union.

Leaving the customs union will slow up the supply chains of these companies. They have just-in-time procurement, and if they cannot manage that, it will slow the whole manufacturing process and increase their costs. If we have hard borders, their costs will increase further not only because of tariffs, but because of paperwork and bureaucracy. That does not just apply to their trade with European Union countries; much of their trade goes through EU countries, even if it ends up elsewhere in the world. Any impact on our borders with the EU will affect our trade elsewhere.

Such costs will put us at a serious competitive disadvantage to companies in other European countries, and those companies are not slow to take that advantage over British companies and approach their customers. My companies tell me that they are already losing contracts because, when they go to bid, they are asked, “Can you guarantee that you will remain a member of the customs union, and that you will be able to maintain frictionless trade and supply chains?” Less than 12 months from our departure from the EU, my companies cannot give that guarantee.

At least four companies in my constituency have already had to set up branches in European Union countries; the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) mentioned that issue. Ireland has a significant backlog of companies seeking to register for VAT in the Republic of Ireland, because so many companies are having to do so. Given the barriers to trade that may come with us leaving the customs union, we will end up with more and more jobs having to go from the UK to EU countries because it makes sense for companies to trade from there.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making excellent points. Is she also worried about the impact on inward investment? When the Japanese ambassador who represents companies as large as Nissan and Hitachi says that the customs union is important for Japanese trade, does that spell out a bad long-term future for us?

[Ruth George]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and global companies in my constituency say that their head offices have put a kibosh on any inward investment into companies at UK sites until they know the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. That is holding them back compared with other sites in the rest of the world, and it is having a long-term impact on valuable manufacturing jobs and other high-skilled jobs in my constituency.

Whatever my constituents voted for when they voted—by a very small majority—to leave the European Union, they did not vote to give British companies a competitive disadvantage compared with those in Europe, or for jobs to be transferred from the UK to overseas, as is already happening at companies in my constituency. As the negotiations proceed, and as we vote in this place on the Brexit deal, I intend to keep listening, particularly to those businesses that will be most affected and feel that they have the least voice in this process. We must ensure that whatever deal we get will work for my constituents and the businesses that employ them.

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[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

To me, this debate means more than just customs and borders; it means jobs and investment in my constituency.

I live on the frontline of Brexit—my constituency is on the frontline. I am closer to the great city of Dublin than the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and over the years, European Union and Irish politics has meant a lot to people in north-west Wales, because we are linked to the people of Ireland and the people of the European Union.

Of course, the Republic of Ireland joined the European Union at the same time as the United Kingdom. We had, and still have, a common area of trade between the two countries, but if we were to leave without the protection that a customs union could give us, we would have a completely separate entity for the first time in our recent history.

The amount of European trade that comes through the port of Holyhead in my constituency is second only to the amount that goes through Dover. Some 400,000 lorries enter and exit the port annually. It is the gateway to the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland, and 11,000 jobs are directly or indirectly supported by the Welsh ports that handle goods from the European Union.

I hear talk about “Project Fear”, as we did with other referendums, but the reality is that many Irish shipping companies, hauliers and agencies are preparing contingency plans as we speak to reroute trade directly from the ports of Cork and Dublin straight to mainland Europe, bypassing the Welsh ports, the English ports and the Scottish ports. That trade would take with it the job opportunities and investment that make the United Kingdom a strong trading nation.

The relationship is very special, and people I speak to in the Republic of Ireland care about what withdrawal and exit from the European Union would mean for us, because it will have a severe impact on us and on them. The customs union would provide a lifeboat for the United Kingdom come Brexit. I think that the Prime Minister really believes that, but has been forced by forces within the Conservative party to take a different route. That route would be disastrous for the port communities, the regional economy in my area, and the entire United Kingdom.

I want to deal head on with the issue of the will of the people. My constituency was split down the middle in the 2016 EU referendum, with a small majority—just over 700—in favour of leaving the EU. I spoke to a lot of people during that period, and many of them told me that one reason why they wanted to leave the European Union—these were older constituents—was that it had become too big and cumbersome, and was not the Common Market that they voted for in the 1970s. Well, a customs union is very similar to the Common Market—

[Helen Goodman]

indicated dissent.

[Albert Owen]

It is slightly different, but it needs arbitration—

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[Helen Goodman]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Is she as alarmed as I am that those projections would result in unemployment in our region rising to 20%, meaning 200,000 people without work?

[Catherine McKinnell]

It does not bear thinking about. I and my hon. Friend are not alone in our concerns. Last July, when the North East chamber of commerce, which represents more than 3,000 businesses of all sizes across the region, conducted a survey of its members, 88% of respondents said that they wished to remain in some kind of single market and customs union. Unsurprisingly, the proportion is even higher among those who export solely to the EU.

The confusion and uncertainty is particularly felt by small and medium-sized enterprises in the north-east, especially those that currently export only to the EU and have no idea what the future holds. The situation has certainly not been improved by rumours that the Department for International Trade will in future provide support only to firms with a turnover of more than £4 million. I hope that the Minister will disabuse people of that concern.

The chief executive of the North East chamber of commerce, James Ramsbotham, wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in February to express his concerns about the forecasted harmful effects of Brexit on the north-east and the Government’s strategy to mitigate them. More than two months after he wrote that letter, he is still waiting for a reply. It is worth quoting from his letter at length:

“I was not surprised that the biggest potential impact is on North East England. As you know, we are the region with the best record at trading with the rest of the EU: an achievement delivered by many Chamber members. It is to be expected that anything which makes doing business with Europe harder will have a greater impact here. I am, however, very disturbed that Government has so far failed to adequately allay the obvious concerns this has created among our members, even before these assessments became public.

You will recall the Government was elected last June on a manifesto that said closing the gap between London and other parts of the UK is ‘the biggest prize in Britain today’, a ‘great endeavour’, and that the Conservative Party was ‘determined to lead the way in the next Parliament’. These forecasts suggest the gap will not reduce but grow significantly wider. If there are figures being shared around Whitehall that suggest your Government’s stated top priority could be seriously undermined, I would expect to see some concerted action to tackle it.

I assume that Government must expect a better outcome from Brexit than that indicated by these forecasts, otherwise you would not be going through with this plan. Given the manifesto commitments mentioned above, I also assume that you expect it to be at least as good for North East England, if not better, than for London. I therefore assume you must have some evidence to support this. It is beyond time for some more frank communication from Government so we can understand the basis of this confidence.

In light of these forecasts, Government should re-think its position on leaving the Customs Union. It seems clear that to do so will exacerbate the risks to the economy, particularly in our region. The freedom to pursue independent trade deals with other countries will present opportunities—but it will also present significant risks, involve great complexity and require huge capacity building. We have not yet seen any evidence to suggest that the opportunities can genuinely be greater than the negative impact of disrupting trade with our nearest markets.

If there is sufficient evidence to show there will be benefits from leaving the Customs Union, then there should be consideration of extending the implementation period. The time to put in place the capacity to deliver such trade deals, and the time for businesses to adjust to new terms of trade and respond to a signal that they should prioritise different markets, is perilously short.

In the meantime, we should be seeing significant investments going in to the support structures to help businesses make these adjustments, and in to the agencies that must manage major new processes—not least HMRC. At present we do not see this and businesses have very limited sources of expert advice available.”

It is difficult to imagine a more damning assessment of the Government’s approach. It is shocking that these calls for clarity, from a body that speaks on behalf of the north-east’s business community, have so far been ignored. I fear that that confirms that the Government do not have our region’s best interests at heart, or that they simply have their head in the sand.

I want to end by asking the Minister a fundamental question: how do the Government intend to close the gap between London and the north-east when all the evidence suggests that their Brexit policy—

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We are undertaking the largest rail investment programme since Victorian times and the largest road investment programme since the 1970s. Overall, the Government are now investing public capital at the highest rate for 40 years. This is one of the components that drives productivity in one of the areas where we have a long-standing gap with our principal competitors: too little public infrastructure. We are closing that gap and that will have a positive impact on productivity growth, but we still have to tackle skills, capability at the level of the firm, and access to capital. It is an important strand, but it is only one strand of the productivity conundrum.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As the Chancellor just said, skills are a crucial plank of improving the nation’s productivity. Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, apprenticeships have collapsed. The Government have also slashed resources for further education institutions, such as the excellent Bishop Auckland College in my constituency, so what is the Chancellor going to do about the middle-level skills base?

[Mr Hammond]

The Government are highly committed to the apprenticeship programme. I recognise that starts are down—we always expected that—but something else is happening, because analysis shows that now that employers are contributing with their own levy to apprenticeship programmes, they are opting for higher-level apprenticeships. There are fewer starts than we expected, but we are seeing a much higher level of apprenticeship. There are more degree-level apprenticeships and more apprenticeships at the higher levels. The Department for Education and the Treasury are looking carefully at how this is working—[Interruption.] This is a serious issue, but the important question is about making sure that the skills that the economy needs are generated.

Spring Statement

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Much is not under the Chancellor’s control, but the subject of my question is. One year ago, we were promised that Making Tax Digital would be put back to help small businesses, but in the intervening time—since the election—very little progress has been made in the countryside on broadband roll-out, so will he please consider putting it back by another year for small businesses?

[Mr Hammond]

No. We made our decision to defer Making Tax Digital mainly because there was a need for greater awareness among businesses and more time to prepare for the relevant software and so on. We are confident that businesses will be able to roll out the programme on the current schedule. Although I readily accept that there is some disquiet among potential business users, I also confidently predict to the hon. Lady that once they have got used to it, they will find that it is hugely beneficial to them, and that it saves them a lot of time and angst in their dealings with HMRC.