EU Exit: Future Relationship White Paper

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. I never had any intention of resigning, despite the optimistic tone in the Twitter feed of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, which somebody pointed out to me. It was a great amusement to wake up on Monday morning and find the number of people—including the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the noble Baroness and others—who had been speculating on my demise. Of course, these are difficult times. There were always going to be difficult and tricky negotiations and I have always said that we need to try to come up with a solution which everybody in the country can support. That will be a challenge but we will do our best, because we have to move forward in a spirit of unity and not division.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister perhaps enlighten the House on whether the customs arrangement proposed will be in full conformity with World Trade Organization rules, which normally lay down that when a third country sends goods to somewhere such as the UK, it knows what tariff rate it will be faced with? That would be the UK tariff rate but apparently, under certain circumstances, it would be a different tariff rate. Does that conform to the WTO?

My second question is about the migration partnership. The Statement makes it clear that this will fall within the ambit of the negotiations with the EU 27, but what on earth are the negotiations going to be about since the White Paper says nothing about the migration partnership? When the Minister’s right honourable friend arrives in Brussels next week, what is he to say when asked what we are putting in place on freedom of movement? Finally, I notice that the Statement states categorically that the Government are not going to spend taxpayers’ money on nothing but, if they get their way and there is a deal, they will have spent millions in taxpayers’ money on preparing for nothing.

[Lord Callanan]

I do not know if the noble Lord has a copy of the White Paper but, if he looks on pages 32, 33 and 34, he will see a substantial amount on what we see as the mobility partnership, the ending of freedom of movement, et cetera. Maybe he would like to look at those pages. Of course anything we seek to negotiate will conform with WTO rules. We will be an independent member of the WTO. We look forward to resuming our seat and we will be a global advocate for free trade, in conformity with WTO rules.