Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, summing up a debate of this quality and range is the stuff of nightmares for me at the Dispatch Box because every single point that I put together prior to the debate has been more than adequately covered by the speakers, to whom, of course, the Government need to respond. Therefore, I have one consolation: however challenging the position in which I find myself, the Minister, after this debate, will find himself in an extremely challenging position. A series of questions have been asked to which it is entirely right that the Government should address themselves.

This is all the product of the collapse, effectively, of the Chequers agreement. The discussion in the Commons on this Bill, leading to the Government’s collapse in the face of the European Research Group’s onslaught, put the Government in the impossible position to which so many noble Lords have referred. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, regretted the fact that this Bill has no Committee stage, so we are unable to bring a degree of detailed consideration subsequently, which we are used to doing. Given the fundamental problems with this Bill, I am not so sure that this general debate is not in itself sufficient for the Government to be obliged to think very hard and to think again. They need to deal with the obvious absurdity, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, referred: the trade remedies aspect of the Government’s proposals is in the next Bill, but this Bill has all the detail. We cannot discuss that detail because this is a supply Bill. The Government really do need to take these issues seriously and I think the debate next week on the Trade Bill will be a fundamental challenge to the Government’s position, which is woeful.

I, too, admire the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, in his support of the Government. He may not have anticipated being in such solitary isolation, but nevertheless, a look at the speakers’ list would show that not too many would be buttressing his argument. We are nevertheless grateful to him for presenting the argument to which the Government seem, at present, to have largely succumbed.

However, this means trouble for our negotiating position in Europe. In general terms, the questions raised on every aspect of the Bill present fundamental difficulties for the Minister in replying. In particular, we can sense—and have sensed for a year—that the problem of Northern Ireland will loom large for the Government as trade negotiations take place. My noble friend Lord Whitty, buttressed by my noble friend Lord Adonis, identified with great accuracy the implications of how critical that position is. I do not think the Government can finesse their way past that. I remember that, prior to Christmas, the Government were pleased that Monsieur Barnier and the negotiators on the other side announced that progress could be made because there had been some understanding of our position on Northern Ireland. It was never very convincing just what that understanding was. As soon as we get near legislation and look at the detail of what the Government’s policy on trade might be, we find that there is still an overwhelmingly difficult problem with Northern Ireland.

The Government cannot carry on with optimistic fudging. They have got to reach something definitive. They may not have announced, prior to the discussions on this Bill, that they would concede to the challenges put down by the European Research Group, but they have done. In consequence, there are crucial problems with our negotiating position, as identified by so many noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who spent a considerable amount of time on this point. None of us can pretend that there have been many positive responses to the position the Government have adopted from Monsieur Barnier and those who represent the 27 other nations. Time moves on. We have very few months in which to avoid the position which some may regard as the proper outcome of these negotiations but which the Government have never said they contemplated and which the British people certainly never expected: that the only outcome is a hard Brexit and a fall back on the World Trade Organization. Noble Lords in this debate have identified the potential difficulties for the nation if we fall into that position.

I will keep my contribution short because I want to give the Minister the maximum amount of time to respond. He will recognise that there have been really substantial questions from every quarter of the House about the Government’s policies, particularly with regard to trade. The Commons largely called them out on this. We regret that we are not able to deal with it in significant detail, but we can all take some sustenance from the fact that, although today’s debate may not have dealt with all the issues in detail, it has identified the critical facts that the Government face as they develop their negotiating position. The Minister has got a pretty tough case to answer.