Trade Bill

Lord Borwick Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I declare my interests in trading companies, as listed in the register.

When I first opened the Bill, I wondered why much of it was necessary. It had never occurred to me that HMRC could not already do what is permitted under this Bill. Was this collection of data done anyway and then stopped? Surely the data collection was necessary to make the figures accurate. Clearly, HMRC has trouble with the regulations.

I have heard it said by business leaders that the GDPR is one of the most burdensome regulations that Parliament has produced. Business leaders are usually not very good at explaining which bits of regulations they would like to see changed, but almost all can say something bad about the details of the GDPR. I am glad that the Bill will remove some of that regulatory burden from HMRC and the Government. That is a good step in starting to remove the burden from business. Perhaps these clauses reveal excellent communication between HMRC and the department. HMRC has a problem; the Government step in and solve it. That is great. When will any department ask for the details of similar problems being dealt with by business and solve them? Regulations, like taxes, are costly and need to be reduced as soon as possible.

A few years ago in a debate about salesmanship, my noble friend Lord Grade gave a spellbinding speech about how salesmanship is undervalued by British business, and I agree with him completely. Furthermore, I suggest that trading ability is in the same category. Some historians argue that it was the 18th-century world traders rather than the 19th-century manufacturers who were responsible for the pre-eminence of the British economy up to the First World War. Whatever the merits of their trade, one can certainly admire their bravery in travelling all over the world without a way to get home in a hurry. Even nowadays, there is a large element of bravery and imagination in setting up a sales business, selling British goods to places that have not bought them before. However, these people are usually not helped by more legislation, and on the whole the British Parliament should do its best to ensure that they are hindered to the minimum extent. I think that the Bill achieves that, but the amendments talked about this afternoon would carry the ability to get in their way substantially.

The amendments debated and rejected in the other place will no doubt reappear here. No doubt they will be enthusiastically supported by a majority in our House, and no doubt they will be rejected all over again. The concept of trade democracy sounds seductive, but we would all agree that democracy produces uncertainty. Many noble Lords started their career in this House following the result of an uncertain election, but certainty and stability are important to a trader. The world is getting smaller, but it is certainly getting more complex and unpredictable.

For some years, I was lucky enough to be chief executive of a group of companies, one of which had the majority market share in the sale of bus doors to Hong Kong. Perhaps that dates me, as the idea of profitably sending a crate of glass and aluminium assemblies from Beverley in Yorkshire to Hong Kong is a bit unlikely, however skilled the workforce in my favourite factory was. But that trade was so extraordinary that it was difficult to explain, and certainly no Government were able or needed to help it. However, we had heroes ready to leap on to a plane to Hong Kong at no notice to solve a customer’s problem, and those sorts of diligent people are not those who have a great deal of time for politics. Traders trade despite regulations, not because of them, so I doubt very much that the sorts of amendments proposed for this Bill will be designed to increase trade between British companies and overseas customers.