Economic Update

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Lilley

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

The Government do not accept that the approach the noble Lord is suggesting is the right one. We have put in place the trader support scheme in Northern Ireland, which I had some responsibility for; some 28,000 businesses have registered for it, including more than 12,500 in Northern Ireland, and 23,000 of those are in a ready-to-trade state. Only last weekend, we managed to move 1,000 lorries across from GB into Northern Ireland; that was after the end of the in-flight concession, which was a big concession, essentially saying that goods were already in transit out of the EU at the point of delivery into Northern Ireland. That has worked smoothly. We will, of course, see problems over the next few weeks as people adjust to a very new system, but I am confident that we will be able to reduce the friction substantially over the weeks and months ahead.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, one lesson of the pandemic is that in a crisis, government bodies, from the MRHA authorising vaccines to local authorities authorising pavement cafes, can take decisions in a fraction of the time they used to. Given the importance of encouraging the growth of existing businesses and the creation of new ones, will my noble friend put pressure on all government bodies to accelerate decision-making, by requiring them to publish the times they take to make decisions and by setting times after which approval will automatically be deemed to be given?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

I very strongly support my noble friend’s views on this. We have seen some remarkable decision-making across government over the last few months, at a much faster rate than normal, and I encourage my noble friend to keep up his campaign to remind people of what is possible. In my own oversight of HMRC border-readiness, I used a simple mantra, which is that it does not take any longer to make a decision than not to make a decision, and it was remarkable how quickly decisions were made. I hope very much that we can continue with that philosophy.