UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union
Debate between Keir Starmer and Adrian Bailey(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier the Secretary of State referred to the 140,000 or so companies that trade exclusively with Europe, only about 40,000 of which have registered and got their EORI numbers, which is necessary in order to do so. The business community has pointed out that there is no reason why HMRC could not give companies an automatic EORI number if they are VAT-registered, as most of them are. It is very worried that the Government are trying to shift the blame for a chaotic no-deal Brexit from their own lack of support and on to business.
Keir Starmer
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is a real cause for concern. In all my discussions with businesses in the past two years, but particularly in the past three to six months, I have detected that while some of the bigger businesses have had the resource to do some planning for no deal, most of the small and medium-sized businesses have not. They have said to me, “We simply do not have the resource to do it, and therefore we haven’t done it.” That is among the reasons why I have always said that a no-deal Brexit is not a viable option.