European Affairs

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. Those on the Front Benches will be noting that figures from Her Majesty’s Treasury have been disputed by their own Back Benchers.

It is important that we talk about European affairs. The right hon. Member for Wokingham advocated taking back control as though he on his own, isolated from all around him, can thrive and prosper without relationships and links with the outside world. It is tempting to envisage him locked in this room on his own, with the doors closed, just to see how he would thrive without the sort of relationships and sustenance that others provide.

So too, for the British economy, there is this fallacy about our independent sovereignty—that as a small island, we can cope on our own, without the rest of the world. These days, in the 21st century and in a modern economy, we rely on the rest of the world, and they also benefit from our engagement with them. We risk serious self-harm if we try to pretend that detaching ourselves from those alliances and relationships and going for the very first time towards less market access, as the Prime Minister advocates, is somehow going to make us better off. It will not; it will make us poorer.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is talking about a world that is long gone, in actual fact. We are a big wide world. I remember when the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister; his judgment was faulty then, and it is as faulty now. He goes on about taking powers back from Europe. The last two days have proved that we are not getting our powers back from Europe under his terms. What is happening now is that the Government are trying to tell us what to do without votes.

[Mr Leslie]

We have to recognise that in so many areas of policy—not just economic or trade policy—we benefit from these alliances and relationships. They do need to be worked on, and we need to somehow give and take a little bit. That is the nature of the global neighbourhood in which we live.

It would be remiss if I did not at this point voice my appreciation for the statements from France and Germany, which have shown their solidarity and fraternity with the United Kingdom in respect of the Russian chemical attack in Salisbury. We are talking about European affairs, and it is important that Europe stands together at an important moment such as this.

But Brexit is bound to dominate this sort of debate, and there are a number of aspects that I want to pick up on. The first is the question of frictionless borders and the trade arrangements that we absolutely have to maintain, not just for our own economic continuance but because of the Good Friday agreement and the need to avoid anything that could diminish the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.

The phase 1 agreement that the Government signed up to said that if they cannot come up with alternative arrangements, full alignment will be the way forward. My understanding is that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has this morning admitted that the notion of a technological option—the “smart borders” option—is just not viable. It is not going to work because it requires hard infrastructure at the borders. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are 275 crossing points on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The notion of having hard infrastructure—cameras, inspection posts and who knows what else—is clearly not compatible with the Good Friday agreement, so the Government have ruled that option out.

The only option that therefore exists is some sort of magical deal whereby the UK agrees to administer the external tariff arrangements for the rest of the European Union while simultaneously administering our own separate tariff arrangements for goods that are destined just within the UK. That does not happen anywhere else in the world. As well as being a complete bureaucratic nightmare, it would require reciprocity from our European partners with regard to our arrangements. They would have to administer a dual-tariff system for goods destined for the UK and those destined for Europe. It is just not going to happen. When the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) winds up the debate, he would do well to admit that the phase 1 agreement that he signed up to now means full regulatory alignment and, of course, that a customs union is the best and simplest way to achieve that.

The Government are trying their best and scrabbling around, asking the road haulage industry, trade bodies and other cargo and freight companies, “What are your volumes of traffic and what’s happening in trade?”, and making them sign non-disclosure agreements, to try to gag them if they dare to speak, even to their own trade body members, about their conversations with Ministers. That just shows how desperate the situation is.