Hauliers

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, my brief remarks are based on having spent 10 years in the European Parliament as a foot soldier in the creation of the single market. I was on the EU Goods Sub-Committee and am now chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership.

The point of the single market and the customs union is frictionless trade, which eases business and creates wealth. If you leave them, as we have done, it is an inevitable and direct consequence that grit gets in the engine, as we have already heard this afternoon from speaker after speaker. In reality, unlike almost all other sectors, the international road haulage industry cannot, for reasons of geography, exploit possible promised trading opportunities elsewhere around the globe. The sector is therefore inevitably collateral damage of Brexit. The Government have imposed that on the industry. What, if anything, do they propose to do both for the industry and, equally importantly, for its customers in the unhappy circumstances in which we currently find ourselves?