European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018
Debate between Hilary Benn and Charlie Elphicke(5 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Hilary Benn
No, I will not give way.
Those businesses do not want tariffs, bureaucracy, delays and checks. The truth is that no one has any idea about what customs officers in Calais will do on the first day and the second day if there is a no-deal Brexit, but, eventually, those officers will have to start checking goods, because we will be a third country. Every lorry that is stopped—
Hilary Benn
No.
The lorries will be backed up from Dover, and a lorry stuck on the M20 cannot be in Germany to pick up the car parts that car plants in Britain require in order to function.
When we add in what my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said about security in her powerful speech, as well as the uncertainty for citizens here and abroad—maybe some British citizens will feel that they must return to the United Kingdom because of that uncertainty—then we realise why this is a prospect that cannot be contemplated. I would not want to be the Government who had to explain to the British people why these things were happening, when the Government were responsible in the first place.
Although many of us may still cling to the hope that the Prime Minister will not take us out of the EU with no deal, I am not absolutely sure. That is why I will vote enthusiastically for amendment (b) in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and amendment (g) in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve).