Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Not only are they greatly exaggerated, it is utterly untrue that there is a link between the two. My hon. Friend has made the case perfectly clearly that the Chinese knew that the Australians were ruling out Huawei involvement yet they still trade with Australia, so the argument in this debate is a red herring entirely. This is an issue about national security. Also, in terms of trading and China, we have not yet resolved issues such as dumping, illegal subsidy and intellectual property theft—and that is before we take into account the 2017 national intelligence law.

[John Redwood]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that in the important talks between the US and China, the issue of intellectual property theft and the legitimate defence of western technology was absolutely central and the US got guarantees in that deal which we still do not have?

[Dr Fox]

That was absolutely central, as my right hon. Friend says; whether the guarantees will turn out to be enforceable is a separate issue, however, and that of course points to some of the issues the United States has about Chinese membership of the World Trade Organisation.

Trade Remedy Measures: UK Interests

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

We got there just before Brexit, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Gentleman did not say very much about trade remedies, so there is very little to respond to. In fact, it is a great example of “If you haven’t got anything to say, don’t say anything”. The Government’s policy is quite clearly correct and is supported by what he calls producers but I call employers. I know it was a slip of the tongue and that he did not mean that his policy is to leave the UK—I am sure that is the policy of the SNP.

The hon. Gentleman says that I want a less regulated economy. Yes, of course I want a less regulated economy, but it is against the rules of the WTO to impose regulations and trade remedies where there is no UK production or where we do not meet the threshold. Is he actually suggesting that we maintain remedies where there is no UK business and industry to protect, to the detriment of our consumers who will pay higher prices without protecting anything in the UK itself?

The hon. Gentleman talks as though cheaper prices are somehow a bad thing. I would love to see an improvement in the disposable income of people across all income ranges. If we can do that by removing tariffs—which are effectively taxes—by procedures such as this, we should be willing to do so. In fact, this is one of the real advantages of our ability to leave the European Union—to set our own tariffs.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the Trade Bill. Report stage in the House of Lords will be on Monday 4 March. He does not seem to understand the consultation we have had. We have engaged widely with stakeholders. He said correctly that we have spoken to those who produce these products, but we have spoken to those who are involved further downstream and whose costs may be reduced by what we are doing. We have spoken to trade associations, in particular UK Steel and the British Ceramic Confederation. We have had bilaterals, roundtables and technical meetings. We have written to all MPs twice, which one would have thought covered a very wide range of consultation if MPs are doing what they should be doing in their constituencies.

On the European Union, if we go into an implementation period, all trade remedies will be rolled over and we will adopt any new European trade remedies during that period.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

An excellent statement with a good balance: protecting our industries against dumping where needed, but giving our customers more choice and lower prices where we do not have an industrial interest. Will my right hon. Friend promise me that those same excellent principles will be applied when he sets out our full tariff schedule, where I hope, for example, we will have zero tariffs on imported components to give a really big boost to British industry?

[Dr Fox]

The Treasury will bring forward the appropriate statutory instruments relating to that soon.

Trade Policy

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Madam Deputy Speaker, of all Members of the House I know what it is like to invoke your wrath, so I will not stray into that territory about what may happen on legislation later today. All I can say is that the Government gave a commitment that before the recess we would come to the House with our proposals for consultation on and scrutiny of new free trade agreements, and that is exactly what we have done.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I strongly support the Government’s line that where we have an existing trade agreement through the EU, we are as entitled to take that over for us as it is for the residual EU. I trust my right hon. Friend will just crack on with that and have it ready by March 2019 in case we leave then, while having a different process for a new trade deal, which I am sure the public will welcome.

[Dr Fox]

We have always made it clear, as I did at the beginning of my statement, that there is a distinction between the continuity agreements covered in the Trade Bill that we will debate tomorrow and new free trade agreements, which we promised we would set out the scrutiny procedure for, and that is what has happened today. I know that it sometimes comes as a shock to the House when a Government do exactly as they said they would do in exactly the timescale allocated, but I am afraid that that is exactly what has happened today.

Draft EU-Canada Trade Agreement Order

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I will give way—for the last time, for the moment—to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood),

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am glad that the Secretary of State is now stressing to Labour Members, who do not seem to understand it, that the deal that the EU has done novates to us as well as to the rest of the EU. The EU that signed the agreement will not be in existence once we have left, so there is an equal opportunity for it to novate to us. There is no reason why it will not novate to us, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be able to improve on it subsequently.

[Dr Fox]

I have said twice that we have already had discussions with Canada to see how we can build on the agreement that we will inherit as we leave the European Union. It is not a question of choosing one or the other. The agreement will already be there for us—assuming, that is, that the House of Commons passes the trade legislation which is necessary to give our businesses, our communities and our workers the certainty of continuity as we leave the European Union.

United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his co-operation over the weekend and for some of the constructive suggestions he made about how we might apply some further pressure to those US producers to enable them to seek exemptions for imports from the UK. He is right that there is overcapacity. The G20 global forum on steel excess capacity has made 28 recommendations. We now wait to see whether China will implement those recommendations, which is the key to sorting out the global overcapacity issue.

We have regularly said that we do not believe that section 232 was an appropriate vehicle for carrying out this investigation. Not only does the UK send some specifically high-end steel products into the United States that the US market is not necessarily able to provide for itself, so tariffs will apply an unavoidable increase in cost to American inputs, but we sell some specialist steel into the American military programme, making action taken against the United Kingdom on a national security ground quite an absurdity.

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the sincere co-operation. I have made it very clear to the Commission that we continue to operate on that basis and that we will replicate the EU’s trade remedies systems as we leave the European Union. I remind him, though, that the Labour party voted against the setting up of the Trade Remedies Authority, not the issues that relate to its operation. That was a dangerous thing to do. However, it is right that we regard this as a national issue. There is no fundamental difference between us on the basis on which the section 232 investigation was conducted, nor on the options that we believe the European Union should take as a response.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State stress to the EU that it is in our interests to try to take some of the tension out of this festering dispute, rather than to take it on to another height, given that the President is already talking about tariffs against German cars, for example? It is surely in our interests to get back to tariff-free or low-tariff business.

[Dr Fox]

The EU is taking countermeasures because the EU views section 232 itself as a safeguard. Any action that the United States were to take in response to that would be completely out of line with international trade law, as well as exacerbating an already tense situation.

Trade Bill

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Lady gives me a good opportunity to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who stood down from the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland yesterday, for his work in trying to achieve a deal in Northern Ireland. We all hope that there will be a functioning Government that the UK Government are able to deal with, because it is in the best interests of all concerned in Northern Ireland that we get a functioning democratic Government in Stormont.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Fox]

I will give way once more to my right hon. Friend.

[John Redwood]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that all the countries that have trade deals with the EU either have indicated that they would like to have a similar agreement with the UK or have certainly not indicated the opposite, so we can look forward to those deals novating, or transferring, to us?

[Dr Fox]

I can indeed confirm that there is considerable interest in the continuation of those trading agreements with the UK, for one overwhelming reason: we are the fifth biggest economy in the world and provide a large market to countries that want to trade with us, so they have every interest in wanting to continue those agreements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Fox]

I will make a little progress.

The Government are taking a similar approach on the transitional trade agreements and on the GPA, looking to maintain the guaranteed access created by our current participation to ensure stability and continuity for UK businesses. As I mentioned earlier, the UK participates in the GPA through our membership of the European Union. Clearly, if we are to retain the benefits of the GPA, we will soon have to join as an independent participant. This legislation will enable the UK Government to make any changes required in domestic law as part of the UK becoming an independent member of the GPA and provide the power to make changes in future to reflect new countries joining the GPA or existing countries withdrawing from it. It is in the UK’s best interests for its businesses to continue to have guaranteed access to the GPA’s global procurement markets and for us to continue to work with our partners in the GPA to address trade barriers within the government procurement sector. We intend the UK to join the GPA, while maintaining our existing terms of participation. Clause 1 will allow the UK to legislate to reflect our new independent GPA status.

[John Redwood]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that a helpful and comprehensive trade facilitation agreement came into effect at the WTO in spring last year? It should be reassuring to all those who are worried about possible disruption to UK-EU trade—pending any agreement—that a lot of it will be governed by those helpful provisions because we and the EU will of course remain members of the WTO.

[Dr Fox]

My right hon. Friend is right. That agreement was the first multilateral trade agreement for decades, which shows how difficult it is to get such multilateral agreements. It does reduce friction for customs arrangements worldwide, but although, as he said, the benefits are great, it is still in the best interests of the UK to come to an open and comprehensive trading agreement with the EU itself.

The Bill provides powers for HMRC to collect and share trade data, as has been mentioned. Those powers include the one in clause 7 that allows primary legislation to be amended to provide for HMRC to collect exporter information. Clause 8 will grant HMRC the authority to share data with those bodies that require those data to carry out a range of public functions relating to trade. Currently, HMRC collects a range of data from import and export declarations that is shared with the European Commission, as well as with other Departments and public bodies, under information gateways governed by EU law. Such gateways will, of course, cease to apply once we leave the European Union, and numerous functions that are currently carried out by the European Commission will be transferred back to the United Kingdom. HMRC will therefore need to be granted the legal authority to request data from exporters and share that data to ensure the continued smooth operation of the UK’s trade frameworks and clear and informed policy making from my Department, as I said to the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell). The powers in clauses 7 and 8 will grant that authority, and nothing more.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) on his maiden speech, which was clear, generous and strong. I am sure that he will make quite a mark in the House of Commons, and I wish him the best of fortune and good health as he enjoys his career here.

Today is a day that we, as democrats, should be celebrating, because we are redressing one of the great democratic deficits in our country. No one in this country who is under the age of 58—happily including myself—has been able to have a say on our membership of the European Union. The world is very different from how it was in 1975 when my parents campaigned on opposite sides of the European question. Then, Britain was the sick man of Europe, with chronic high inflation and with state-owned industries bleeding us dry. It was dominated by the trade union barons. We looked at Europe as a sign of economic success. We looked at Germany and said, “Let’s have a little bit of that!”

But let us look at how Germany and the rest of Europe have changed today, with the chronic crisis in the euro threatening global financial stability and condemning millions of young Europeans to chronic high levels of unemployment. Europe was at the centre of a very different world in 1975. In the middle of the cold war, political interest lay in Europe and in its relationship with the United States and the communist bloc. Today, however, in the era of multi-polar globalisation, Europe finds itself increasingly diminished politically and economically. The choice in the referendum will therefore be made against a very different backdrop.

A question that is often asked, and has been asked in the debate today, is this: if people had known in 1975 what Europe would become, would they have made the same decision? When they joined the common market, they did not know that they were actually joining a mechanism that would have a ratchet effect, taking them nearer and nearer to the destination of ever-closer political union, with no means of redress. People in this country genuinely wanted to be able to co-operate with our European partners when it was in our mutual interest to do so, but they also wanted to keep separate the levers that we might need to use in Britain’s national interest, when that interest was different from that of our leading European partners.

Most people in this country today feel, deep down, that too many of our laws are made abroad, and that too many of the basic democratic decisions affecting the way in which we live are made beyond our shores. They feel that the British people have no means of redress. This is part of a process in which those who live under the law in this country have less and less ability to shape those laws themselves. We simply cannot continue with a European model that is failing systemically. We cannot continue on a 1950s trajectory that is unyielding and unbending. If the European Union ultimately breaks, it will be because it cannot face up to the changing realities of the era in which we live.

Most people in this country do not believe that we should leave the European Union, whatever the circumstances; nor do they believe that we should stay in, whatever the circumstances. Instead, they believe that we should take a rational decision based on whatever renegotiation is achieved by the Prime Minister and the Government. They believe that we should take a rational view, and that we should have reform of all the European Union. This is key: it is not enough simply to change Britain’s relationship with the European Union; we need fundamental change in the Union itself. Unless we get that change, Europe will continue to go in the wrong direction. If we only change Britain’s membership, we will be negotiating a better membership deal for a bad club, and that is not in the long-term interests of the country.

[John Redwood]

Do not most British people still want what many of them wrongly thought that they were voting for in 1975? They wanted a trade-based relationship with political co-operation when it is in our interests, and they did not want to join a superstate in the making.

[Dr Fox]

My right hon. Friend is perfectly correct. People in this country wanted to join a common market and wanted an economic and trading entity. Many who voted in that referendum believe that by stealth they were sold a pup by being sold into a very different entity on which they were never allowed to give their opinion. That is why we should celebrate what is happening in the Chamber today. We are allowing those people to have a voice, which they have been denied by Governments of both political complexions for many years.

Defence Transformation

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

That is our plan, and I have agreed to my officials now getting involved in contract negotiations. They were not previously able to do so because we were not guaranteed that we would have the budget. When we make decisions of this nature we must ensure that we have the wherewithal to pay for them. Otherwise, as I have said, they are simply a wish list.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State is proposing to close the large Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers garrison at Arborfield in my constituency, will he ensure that the officials working on the disposal, who aim to make a substantial capital gain for new housing, will understand that some of the money will be needed for transport and educational facilities for the large new settlement they have in mind?

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support and understanding on this issue and know that he will be disappointed that the units are being moved out of Arborfield. We intend to achieve that in a measured way by 2014-15. I am sure that discussions will be ongoing with the local authority on the financial implications he has pointed out.

Armed Forces (Redundancies)

Debate between Liam Fox and John Redwood

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The redundancy process in the RAF will proceed as it should. The individuals concerned will be informed, and we will see whether alternatives are available for them. Those who need to leave will do so under the rules for compulsory redundancy, which are set out clearly for the armed forces.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What is the current rate of natural wastage for civilian and uniformed personnel? In future, will it be possible to achieve the reductions mainly through natural wastage rather than compulsory redundancy?

[Dr Fox]

The cases are different for civilian and military personnel. In the military there is a compulsory redundancy programme, so that we maintain the shape of the armed forces. We must maintain not just those on the front line, but the enablers whom they require. Things are different in the civil service—and while we will be losing 17,000 personnel across the armed forces, we will be losing 25,000 from the civil service in the Ministry of Defence.