HMRC Impact Analysis: Customs

Debate between Jesse Norman and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that in due course it will come to be seen that Brexit was a moment of change in which we moved ourselves to a global position in which we were able to change many of the rules and regulations governing our international and domestic trade for the better—to make them more streamlined, to lighten the burden and to increase our economic efficiency and productivity.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Given that these are HMRC’s own assessments—the Government’s own assessments—of a multi-billion pound cost, the Minister could have given HMRC any credible assessment of mitigation if he had any. Can he instead confirm that these costs do not even include tariffs, and that they are in fact the costs not simply of no deal but of refusing to have a customs union at all? Given that a proposal for a deal including a customs union only lost by three votes back in April and that such a deal would, according to his own figures, have saved British businesses billions, why have the Government continually refused even to explore a deal that includes a customs union?

[Jesse Norman]

I could wish that the right hon. Lady, who is widely respected across the House, had used her influence to bring Labour Members into the Lobby to support the deal that was offered—[Interruption]—and, still more, the deal that we are currently exploring, when that is placed before the Chamber. [Interruption.] The impact analysis is a careful piece of work that reflects dozens of statutory instruments that have been placed before the House. It is a composite of all the impact assessments in place, and should be seen as such. Before Members become too enervated, they should reflect that although the number has gone up somewhat, the unit cost of a declaration has not gone up. The increased number reflects the increase in trade in the last couple of years, and in the period to 2017, which is interesting, because it does not look as though trade has been headed off by the threat of Brexit.