EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move motion (B),

That this House agrees that the UK shall leave the EU on 12 April 2019 without a deal.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following motions:

Motion (D)—Common market 2.0—

That this House—

(1) directs Her Majesty’s Government to— renegotiate the framework for the future relationship laid before the House on Monday 11 March 2019 with the title ‘Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom’ to provide that, on the conclusion of the Implementation Period and no later than 31 December 2020, the United Kingdom shall—

(a) accede to the European Free Trade Association (Efta) having negotiated a derogation from Article 56(3) of the Efta Agreement to allow UK participation in a comprehensive customs arrangement with the European Union,

(b) enter the Efta Pillar of the European Economic Area and thereby render operational the United Kingdom’s continuing status as a party to the European Economic Area Agreement and continuing participation in the Single Market,

(c) enter a comprehensive customs arrangement including a common external tariff at least until alternative arrangements that maintain frictionless trade with the European Union and no hard border on the island of Ireland have been agreed with the European Union,

(d) conclude an agreement with the European Union, which in accordance with Article 2 of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland of the Withdrawal Agreement supersedes the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in full;

(e) develop and bring to this House proposals for full and fair enforcement of the rule that EEA migrants must be “genuinely seeking work” and have “sufficient resources not to become a burden on the UK’s social assistance system”, in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006;

(2) resolves to make support for the forthcoming European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill conditional upon the inclusion of provisions for a Political Declaration revised in accordance with the provisions of this motion to be the legally binding negotiating mandate for Her Majesty’s Government in the forthcoming negotiation of the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Motion (H)—EFTA and EEA—

That this House recognises the democratic duty of Parliament to respect the result of the 2016 referendum whilst securing an orderly departure from the EU that preserves the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; notes that the UK is a signatory to the treaty establishing the European Economic Area and has not given notice to leave the EEA as is required under Article 127 of that agreement; further notes that the UK was a founding member of the European Free Trade Association in 1960 and therefore call on the Government to (a) assert its existing rights as a signatory to the EEA, (b) take necessary steps to make our rights and obligations as an EEA member operable on an emergency basis through the domestic courts, (c) apply to re-join EFTA at the earliest opportunity to make the EEA agreement operable on a sustainable basis and (d) decline to enter a customs union with the EU but seek agreement on new protocols relating to the Northern Ireland border and agri-food trade.

Motion (J)—Customs union—

That this House instructs the Government to:

(1) ensure that any Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration negotiated with the EU must include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU;

(2) enshrine this objective in primary legislation.

Motion (K)—Labour’s alternative plan—

That this House requires Ministers to:

(a) negotiate changes to the draft Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration so as to secure:

(i) a permanent customs union with the EU;

(ii) close alignment with the single market underpinned by shared institutions and obligations;

(iii) dynamic alignment on rights and protections;

(iv) commitments on participation in EU agencies and funding programmes, including in areas such as the environment, education, and industrial regulation;

(v) agreement on the detail of future security arrangements, including access to the European Arrest Warrant and vital shared databases; and

(b) introduce primary legislation to give statutory status to the objectives set out in paragraph (a).

Motion (L)—Revocation to avoid no deal—

If, on the day before the end of the penultimate House of Commons sitting day before exit day, no Act of Parliament has been passed for the purposes of section 13(1)(d) of the Withdrawal Act, Her Majesty’s Government must immediately put a motion to the House asking it to approve ‘No Deal’ and, if the House does not give its approval, Her Majesty’s Government must ensure that the notice given to the European Council under Article 50, of the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the European Union, is revoked in accordance with United Kingdom and European Union law.

Motion (M)—Confirmatory public vote—

That this House will not allow in this Parliament the implementation and ratification of any withdrawal agreement and any framework for the future relationship unless and until they have been approved by the people of the United Kingdom in a confirmatory public vote.

Motion (O)—Contingent preferential arrangements—

That this House directs that in case the UK is unable to implement a Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, Her Majesty’s Government shall seek to agree immediately and preferentially with the EU:

(a) a trade agreement and/or joint notification of trade preference covering 100 per cent of goods traded between the UK and EU under which no tariffs or quantitative restrictions will be applied between the parties and full cumulation of rules of origin which shall apply for a period of up to two years after the UK leaves the EU notwithstanding that these arrangements may be superseded or extended by further mutual agreement;

(b) a standstill period of mutual recognition of standards and conformity assessment for up to two years in which the UK will ensure compliance in the UK with the EU legislative acquis as adopted in Retained EU law under the EU Withdrawal Act on the day the UK leaves the EU notwithstanding that these arrangements may be superseded or extended by further mutual agreement;

(c) a customs arrangement consisting of advanced trade facilitation measures that enables and makes full and widespread use of simplified and subsidised procedures to perform customs and regulatory declarations and associated control processes away from UK/EU borders; and

(d) make provision for the payment of sums to the European Union in amounts equivalent to the UK’s current net annual financial contribution to the EU for up to two years in respect of the above agreements and arrangements.

[Mr Baron]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for choosing this motion.

I refer right hon. and hon. Members to motion (B)—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I should be most grateful if—

[Mr Speaker]

No, no—I have already called the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay and he has started to speak. In any case, I am on my feet, so the hon. Gentleman should not rise to his feet while I am on mine. Somebody as concerned with procedure as the hon. Gentleman might usefully become acquainted with that important procedural fact.

I was just going to appeal to colleagues—and I think the intervention has helped me to do so—to leave the Chamber quickly and quietly so that we can proceed with the debate and each contributor enjoys the respectful attention of the House which he or she deserves.

[Mr Baron]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Just so that the House is absolutely clear, my motion (B) reads:

That this House agrees that the UK shall leave the EU on 12 April 2019 without a deal.

May I suggest to the House that, as we stand at this point in time, this is, in law, the default position of triggering article 50? We all knew, those of us who were here and voted for it in February 2017, what we were voting for: the motion simply said that we would leave the EU on 29 March with or without a deal, and we passed it by 384 votes.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Baron]

I will in a second—I am going to make some progress first.

Although article 50 can be extended—I voted against that—we should still, as a House, reflect on that vote and recognise that, while most of us in this place want a good deal, many of us have taken the view that the deal on offer from the Prime Minister is not a good deal, and therefore the legal default position is that we leave on no deal/World Trade Organisation terms.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

May I ask a clarifying question about the meaning of motion (B)? Does my hon. Friend mean to say that, even if a deal is agreed before 12 April, we should still seek to leave without a deal?

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend is right to seek clarification. The answer is no—my preference, as I have stated, is that we leave with a deal, with the backstop duly amended, so that we could not as a country be caught in it indefinitely. That would be my preference, and then this motion would no longer apply. The date is set in the motion because, as he will know, that is the date given by the EU if there is no agreement.

I remind Members that, while most of us in this place prefer a good deal to no deal, no deal is still preferable to a bad deal. We are left in a position where it looks as though the Prime Minister’s deal, unless there is a major shift in this place, is not going to pass—I do not think it will come back, but even if it does, I do not think it will pass. The default position is that we are leaving on WTO terms and I remind the House that, despite all the predictions of doom and gloom, we trade profitably on WTO terms, with the majority of the world’s GDP outside the EU. We have been assured on several occasions by Ministers and, indeed, by the Prime Minister that we are prepared for a no-deal exit.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. Let me take a moment to remind the House and in particular the hon. Gentleman that Northern Ireland has not had a Government since January 2017. We have no Ministers in Northern Ireland. The head of the Northern Ireland civil service has warned as recently as the beginning of this month of the “grave” consequences for Northern Ireland if we were to leave without a deal. Does the hon. Gentleman have any respect at all for the head of the civil service in Northern Ireland or indeed for the people of Northern Ireland?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

I will respond to the intervention by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), if I may, and then move on. I have great respect for the people of Northern Ireland. Having served there in the 1980s and got the medals to prove it, I take into account what the people of Northern Ireland, as part of our Union, have to say. At the same time, we are part of a United Kingdom, and there are predictions on both sides of this discussion as to possible outcomes. The Taoiseach has just suggested that we do not need a hard border to solve what has become known as the Northern Ireland backstop problem. There are differences of opinion and we need to recognise that in this debate. I will take note of your stricture, Mr Speaker, and make haste in my remaining comments.

We have been assured by Ministers time and again, in Committees and on the Floor of the House, that we are prepared for no deal. We have spent billions on no deal; £4.2 billion seems to be the current figure. When I posed the Prime Minister a very simple question in the Chamber on 12 February—“Are we going to be prepared?”—she answered in three words: “We are indeed.”

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Baron]

I will not.

I have to take at face value those reassurances by Ministers that we are indeed prepared for no deal. There is a prevalent argument that no deal would lead to disaster not only in this place but outside it. I respectfully point out that the people making that argument are often the very same ones who predicted doom and gloom in 2016; they said that would be the result if we voted to leave. Some of the predictions were so dire that they were beyond credibility. We had predictions that 500,000 extra people would be unemployed by December 2016 if we voted to leave; some estimates put it up to 700,000. We had predictions of self-made recessions. We even had predictions of conflict on the continent of Europe. They were all proved wrong. The Bank of England—for the first time in its history, to my knowledge—had to publicly apologise for getting it so badly wrong.

What has happened since then? We have had record low unemployment, record high manufacturing output and record investment, and those decisions in the last two or three years have been made in the full knowledge that we could be leaving the EU with no deal and on WTO terms. I gently remind Members that investment is about comparative advantage. It is about such factors as, what is our corporation tax rate compared with other countries? How flexible is our labour market? What about our top universities? What about our financial expertise? In total, those are of greater influence when it comes to investment than 3% to 7% WTO tariffs. I ask the House to reflect on that, because there are too many wild predictions flying around this place, when the discussion should be based on economic reality.

I would go one stage further. If we introduce a fair and controlled immigration policy, wages will rise faster in this country than if that immigration policy were not in place. That is what Lord Rose, who was leader of the remain campaign leading up to the referendum, said in front of the Treasury Committee. Scare stories that we are all heading for doom and gloom and that goods will no longer traverse customs unions and trading blocs around the world, which they already do, are very wide of the mark. Let us base this discussion and the votes tonight on economic reality. Much as a few Opposition Members—particularly the SNP—do not like to admit it, we are doing rather well economically, and as I said, those decisions have been based on the possibility of us leaving on no-deal terms.

Given your guidance on timings, Mr Speaker, I will bring my comments to a close. I appeal to the House for rational consideration with regard to no deal. There are a lot of scare stories out there, but this is a repeat of 2016. Those scare stories were wrong then and they are wrong now. Let us have a note of optimism about the future of this country and the capability of this country, and let us back this country. If we cannot get a good deal, let us get back to economic reality and realise that we already trade profitably with the majority of the world’s GDP outside the EU on WTO terms, and there is no reason why we cannot trade with the EU on such terms. I recommend that the House support motion (B).

[Mr Speaker]

As the hon. Gentleman has completed his oration in a timely way, we now proceed to the next contributor to the debate, and I am proposing what might be called an indicative time limit of five minutes.