Customs and Borders

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

There is no doubt about that. If we have no customs union, there will be less free trade than we currently have, and that is where the manufacturing industry is at risk.

Manufacturing is very important in my constituency, and we are very proud of having Haribo there. I have been to visit, and I particularly enjoyed doing the quality-control checks on the Starmix—we made sure that they were particularly rigorous and tried many times to make sure that the Starmix was very top quality that day. The chief executive of Haribo said clearly to me:

“If a truck loaded with materials that we desperately need to make a product is held up or not released at border control for a day or two, the worst case scenario would be production grinding to a halt”.

That is the reality.

We know, too, that this issue is particularly important for the Northern Ireland border. Ministers have rightly said that there should be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic or between Northern Ireland and Britain. Parliament has a responsibility to make sure that that happens.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

Will the right hon. Lady take a moment to reflect on the statement that the Prime Minister made yesterday at Prime Minister questions when she was happy to endorse the idea, peddled by the Government again, that no deal would be better than a bad deal? That is a very dangerous strategy, and I say that as someone who represents a Northern Ireland constituency. If we have no deal, we will inevitably have a hard border in Northern Ireland, and we will see the return of violence in Northern Ireland.

[Yvette Cooper]

I have huge respect for the hon. Lady’s views on this, and I agree. We have to show some responsibility. This is not something on which we can simply trade political slogans or vote for an abstract. We have to be very honest and real about the consequences. The removal of the security and economic checks at that border and the growing economic integration between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as well as with the rest of the United Kingdom, are an important part of ending a conflict in which so many people have died. We have a huge responsibility to future generations who will not forgive us if we just rip all that up and throw it away because we did not face the facts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Hoey]

No, I will not give way to my hon. Friend.

I should like to move on to the issue of the border and Northern Ireland. Under the Tony Blair Government, I was one of those who went over and campaigned for a yes vote. I was very keen to see what happened happen, and I pay tribute to all those who made that happen. There is no doubt that there is an issue relating to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but the European Union is seizing on divisions to pursue certain demands that are just not necessary. It is certainly using the Irish border as an issue with regard to the customs union. EU officials recently said that they had systematically and forensically annihilated the Prime Minister’s proposals for a loose customs arrangement, but in fact they did not do that—they simply refused to discuss any creative compromise. They talk down every British proposal, and they are being helped by some in this Parliament who talk down everything positive that is said about what might be done. Proposals are talked down and talked down.

People need to remember that there is already a legal border in Northern Ireland for excise, alcohol, tobacco, fuel duty, VAT, immigration, visas, vehicles, dangerous goods and security. Indeed, the primary function of the hard border of the past was to be a security border, not a customs border. People forget that because they want to forget what happened during those long years of troubles. Today all those border functions are enforced without any physical infrastructure, so adding customs declarations and marginally divergent product standards to the long list of functions that the border already implements invisibly does not require a huge, drastic change to the nature of the border.

Even in the most complicated area—agriculture —the director of animal health and welfare at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already given evidence to Parliament that sanitary and phytosanitary-related risks would not be altered by Brexit from what the authorities are already managing across the border pre-Brexit, and that additional infra- structure at the border would not be needed. There are already cameras—not at the border itself, but further away—and checks are going on all the time. There is intelligence all the time. There is no reason why businesses on both sides of the border that need to move back and forth every day will have any problem.

[Lady Hermon]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. I can assure her that I do not forget the appalling years before the signing of the Good Friday agreement.

Will the hon. Lady please address the worrying issue that, if there is in any shape or form a harder border than what we have at the moment, Sinn Féin will exploit that and agitate for a border poll, which would jeopardise Northern Ireland’s constitutional status as part of the United Kingdom? I, as a Unionist, will not tolerate that, and we need to be careful that we address that issue.

[Kate Hoey]

Of course Sinn Féin would love a border poll, but as the hon. Lady knows, there are regulations about when a border poll can be held, and there has to be a certain ratio of contentment before that can happen. It is almost as if we are being blackmailed by Sinn Féin and those who have been responsible for violence in the past. It is as if we have to shape our whole economic policy and future according to whether some dissidents will start to do dreadful things again. That is not how we should tackle it. We should take those people on and put them in jail, and we should make sure that decent, ordinary people can go about their lives without being attacked and threatened by the idea that if we do not do Brexit in a particular way, terrorism will start again.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on securing today’s extremely important debate. I thank all Members for their passionate, heartfelt and informed contributions. I do not intend to go through all the contributions, given their volume and the fact I would like to make sure I leave time for any Member who wishes to intervene on me to ask any questions or to make any points. If I have time, I will leave a minute for the right hon. Lady at the end.

A number of important points have been made in this debate. First and foremost is the matter of Northern Ireland and its Irish border. Some Members have suggested that, in fact, we are prepared to jettison the Good Friday agreement, to undermine it in some way or not to stand up for it, which is certainly not the case. We remain entirely committed to the Good Friday agreement, as we do to having no hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland and, indeed, no effective customs border down the Irish sea.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mel Stride]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Lady Hermon]

Thank you. It is nice that the Minister regards me as an hon. Friend.

I gently say to the Minister that it would be very helpful in a sensitive situation if the Prime Minister would stop repeating the mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal, because it directly contradicts her pledge, sincerely meant, to uphold the principles of the Good Friday agreement, which I believe she does and intends to do. However, there is a contradiction there, and I am sure the Minister agrees that we do not want to see any risk of a hard border with Ireland. That would lead to violence along the border.

[Mel Stride]

The position of the Prime Minister and the Government is that we are confident of a deal. In that context, this issue of no deal is not particularly pertinent.

Other important points have been raised. I think everybody recognises the importance of having as frictionless a border as possible. Of course, it is recognised that we would achieve that if we stayed within the customs union or a customs union, which is de facto the same thing, but that is not the same as suggesting that there are not alternative arrangements—I will discuss those alternative arrangements in a moment—that would achieve as good as the same thing as a frictionless border.

Many Members today have raised the importance of being free as a nation to go out and negotiate our own free trade arrangements, which of course means that we need to leave the customs union.