Trade Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Meyer on her maiden speech, which was distinctly moving. I knew about the story, which I had read in the press, of the problems that she had in being reunited with her children as a result of German divorce laws—but I must say that to hear it again strikes dismay, and many other emotions, in the heart of any mother or indeed father in this country today. I wish I could say that it was only the German divorce laws that were depriving mothers of their children; I am afraid the state in this country as well has a role to play in that.

She described her White Russian grandparents, a persecuted minority who had to flee. She also said that she was standing up for Brexit in this House. She will not be persecuted but she will certainly be in a minority—a very small minority, I have to tell her, because for some reason there are serried ranks in your Lordships’ House who think that the country made a very great mistake in voting to leave the EU and are not really reconciled, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Butler, to the vote, which was a quite clear decision that made it absolutely clear to the country that we wanted to leave. This is strange, because I always think of the noble Lord as coming from what I call the mandarin class—people who have made the decision to dedicate their lives to politics but not to stand for election. Then someone makes a democratic vote—the country votes—and they say, “No, no, they’ve got it wrong”. Suppose that we ignore the vote of the country. Where does that leave the people of this country?

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way—I intervene because he referred to me. I do not assert that the British people got it wrong. I assert that they were not in a position to make an informed choice—and that is what I now want to see happen.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I would point out to the noble Lord that you could make exactly the same point about the verdict of a general election. You could say that the people who won the election did not give the right information, ignored many vital issues and produced inaccuracies in their election addresses. Do you, on that basis, reverse the general election? If you do, you will find that people will be given no option but to take to the streets.

Actually I am rather heartened by the people contributing to this debate. Many of my noble friends who have arraigned us with their views do not seem to be speaking here today. Perhaps they have been somewhat discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm for the rebels in my party in the other place, who failed to uphold any of the amendments to what was then the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill—perhaps the stuffing has been knocked out of them.

This seems to be a very sensible Bill because it paves the way for transferring many of our trading arrangements. As my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, this is not a very complicated exercise because, of the countries that have free trade agreements with the EU, only about four, accounting for 80% of our exports, really matter in terms of the negotiations.

The point was made by the Opposition Front Bench that some of these countries might want to alter the agreements. I have to say that I sincerely hope they do—but that does not mean that we do not transfer the agreements as they stand today on a cut-and-paste basis and then go back at a later date and negotiate a more wholehearted deal that will incorporate a lot more trade.

[Baroness Kramer]

I have a question for the noble Lord, which I hope might help. How does he propose we cut and paste rules of origin and local content? I find it a really interesting concept that we could do that.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

The noble Baroness mentioned the question of origin, and I thought my noble friend Lord Lilley dealt with that. I do not think it is quite the problem that the noble Baroness seems to make it out to be. I do not see that there is going to be any great problem in transferring over the existing agreements. Indeed, there is tremendous good will from the countries involved that want to do this.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords—

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I am not going to give way again. The noble Baroness cannot go on getting up; I have only a limited amount of time. It must be right that we sign up to the government procurement agreements as well, because they involve a lot more countries. This will make it easier for us to leave the EU without an agreement and resort to the WTO.

It is interesting that, during the progress of these negotiations, the whole idea of going to the WTO and having no deal on trade has been taken off the table. Let us face it: the Government had a very weak hand, and no deal was the only ace in that hand. It almost defies credibility that, at one point during the negotiations, it was taken off the table. Now there is a lot of preparation being done for no deal and for the WTO. This Bill will form part of the preparation.

The whole attitude of the EU has completely changed. There are a large number of manufacturers in the EU saying, “What does the WTO mean for us?”. What it means for German car manufacturers is a 10% tariff on all assembled cars they send to this country. Everybody says, “Oh, it’s a much smaller amount of trade for the EU than it is for us”—as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, did a moment ago. The eurozone sells us one and a half times as much as we sell to it, and the Germans sell twice as much in manufactured goods to us as we do to them. So it does impact on them. There was a moment when we were told that we were being the laggards of Europe and that our growth rates were falling. I agree that you cannot believe quarterly figures, but now our growth rates are up by a margin over those of the EU. So the EU is not in such a strong economic position that it can say, “For political reasons, to punish the British, we are going to have a really hard deal which means that we sell less to them than they do to us”.

Let us look at what has actually happened. It was not that long ago—before the election, I must admit—that the Prime Minister said that no deal was better than a bad deal. That was in the days when Nick Timothy was her special adviser. As a result of the general election, he has gone. Now we have Olly Robbins instead, and we seem to be in the position where any deal is better than no deal. The result has been the Chequers agreement. In my opinion, this is a complete dog’s breakfast that could have been dreamed up only by a civil servant. Why have we moved away from the simplicity of a Canada free trade deal with serious additions? I do not understand why that was ever taken off the table and why we are in the nonsensical position that we are today. If this country is going to have a future, we want a clearly understood deal, based on Canada. That will get us out of the EU and trading as the Canadians intend to do in the future.