EU: Trade in Goods (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I first put on record my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and to the other members of the European Affairs Committee for producing this excellent report. We have had an excellent debate so far. I join the noble Earl and others in their comments about our much-missed colleague, the late Lady Couttie.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, on her wonderful valedictory speech. The noble Baroness has a truly wonderful record of public service, having served in this House and the other place for just under 49 years. I found out that she jointly holds the 20th-century record for continuous service in government, having been appointed a Minister following the election of the Conservative Government in 1979 and serving every single day until the Government left office in 1997. I first saw her on television, when she was the Minister for Overseas Development, visiting many countries on behalf of the UK. She has a proud record of achievement in the field of international development, both in and out of government. I wish her a long and happy retirement, which is well deserved.

I am pleased that several members of the committee which produced the report have taken part in the debate. The most disappointing thing that the committee found—sadly, I was not surprised—is that since the implementation of the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union, trading with the EU has become more complex and burdensome for business. That means more red tape and more cost. That is not some abstract concept; it is affecting everybody.

I have my own example to give the House. It was my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary in November 2021. They lived in the UK for 50 years and then went back to Ireland, where they came from. I sent them some flowers and I wanted to send them some chocolates, so I logged on to the Hotel Chocolat website—I had used the site many times. When I put in where they lived, I got a message saying, “Sorry, we cannot send to anywhere outside the UK at the moment and nowhere in the European Union.” I thought, “This can’t be right. This is ridiculous.” I kept checking, but I could not send chocolates to them. So I found a very good chocolatier in Ireland, sent them the chocolates and it was great. But look at the loss of revenue because this great company could not send to anywhere in Europe. I checked today. It says that they can now do Ireland but they still cannot do the European Union. It is nonsense that we are in this situation. Money is lost to a great British company—lost profit, lost jobs and lost opportunity. It is an absolutely ridiculous situation to be in. That is one small example. If we multiply that by all the other people who want to do it, and other sectors and other businesses, it is a huge hit to our economy.

Generally, what I find most frustrating from the Government is their position that, with all the problems that businesses have with exporting, compliance, rules of origin, SPS rules, customs requirements and other regulations, it is always somebody else’s fault and always somebody else’s problem. It would be refreshing to hear the noble Lord, or any Minister, say to us, “Yes, it hasn’t gone as well as we thought it would. It is not as good—we accept that entirely.” We all accept that there have been issues with how the EU has sought to address problems, but we as the UK must take our share of the blame as well and acknowledge that we have not always acted as we should have done.

We should stop the nonsense and move ahead, engaging positively and in good faith, with no more threats about ripping up agreements that we entered into—agreements that we negotiated and then want to rip up a few months later. That is just not the way to operate. It would be lovely to hear from the noble Lord or any Minister that we will act in good faith. For me, that is the British way of operating: we act in good faith and our word is our bond. That is what we should be doing.

I am a pro-European, but as my noble friend Lord Liddle and other noble Lords have said, there is no possibility of us going back into the European Union any time soon—it is off the agenda; I accept that entirely. I also fully accept that the impact of the Covid pandemic has to be taken into account. However, the challenges identified in the report are little to do with the pandemic and are a result of the position we found ourselves in at the end of the transition period.

The SPS requirements have continued to be a major barrier to exports of agri-food products since the trade and co-operation agreement. As the report says,

“GB exports of agri-food to the EU have become slower, less competitive, and more costly”.

If this issue, among others, could be addressed, we could make more progress on the Northern Ireland protocol issues that the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, mentioned. I want to see the Assembly set up again and politicians in Northern Ireland making the decisions that they want in Northern Ireland—that is really important for everybody.

My noble friend Lord Liddle made an important point about small companies and trade. I lived for many years in the east Midlands, although I am a Londoner, and I found out recently that only 5% of companies in the east Midlands export any more—they just stopped exporting to the European Union. How is that good for anyone?

Like my noble friend Lord Liddle, I want to make the best of where we are and move forward, and we have to do that in good faith with our European partners and friends. The trade deals that have been negotiated so far have been very poor—look at the comments of George Eustice in the other place on that matter.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke specifically about the health and safety sector. She set out some of the worrying points and had some very pertinent questions for the Minister. I know that he cannot answer them today and that he will write to the noble Baroness and other Members of the House, but I thought that the noble Baroness’s questions on health and safety were very important.

The noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, again identified issues where, if we had taken a different attitude, we could be in such a different place here today. It is all about attitude and acting in good faith.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, set out the context of the report. Although the figures are out of date—we all accept that—it has got worse, not better. Plain common sense, not ideology, is what we need here for British business and the British people to prosper. Sadly, over Brexit, ideology, not common sense, has been the driving force.

My noble friend Lord Stansgate set out a number of concerning points and statistics. I want to mention three points. The first is the problem that has been caused for artists and musicians; the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, also mentioned that. We have a fantastic, wonderful, vibrant cultural sector in this country—it is one of our jewels—and all we have done is damage that. I have been quite shocked and surprised that question after question has come to the Government but nothing has happened; the way they have behaved over the last few years has been shocking. I do not understand how anyone would leave the sector as it is now; it is absolutely appalling.

Secondly, last September, on my way to the Labour Party conference, I went with my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley to Chester Zoo, having been invited to visit it. It is a wonderful place; I had never been there but it is a fabulous zoo. We met a guy there called Gareth Siddorn, who showed us round the zoo, and what he told us about was the very point that my noble friend mentioned, about all the breeding programmes and the fact that you have to move all the animals around different countries so that you have proper breeding. There was a real threat that the zoo could not get animals moved around—it is a huge problem. I had never thought of that until it was mentioned to me when I was at the zoo, but it was worrying for the staff there, as their breeding programmes and conservation could be affected because of the red tape and the problems that Brexit had brought. I thought that was absolutely awful.

Thirdly, I also agreed with my noble friend’s comments about the Horizon programme and science. I was surprised this week when I sat here and listened to the answers from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is not in his place today. I thought his comments on where we are with Horizon were most unsatisfactory. It is always somebody else’s problem—it is the EU’s problem. It is just not good enough. As I said before, I agree very much with the points the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, made on that, and the loss of revenue to the Treasury from the cultural stuff is absolutely immense.

I thank my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock for rotating off the European committee. I know that the rotations this time were quite difficult—I have had many delegations to my office about rotations over the last few weeks and months—but we got there in the end and I think we have all learned some lessons from that.

My noble friend also mentioned the barriers of red tape between the EU and the UK in their trading relationship. I do not understand why anyone who believes in free trade and understands that trade brings prosperity would want a situation where more red tape and barriers are put in place. My noble friend also mentioned the comments of Tony Danker from the CBI, who called for more temporary work visas for European citizens to come and work here. Again, that call appears to be falling on deaf ears, and I do not understand why that is the case.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, highlighted the huge problems that tourism is facing. It brings huge sums of money into the UK economy. Again, people come to this country because of our cultural offer; they want to go to our theatres, visit our museums and galleries and look at our wonderful arts scene.

I have mentioned before how, when I was a young councillor in Southwark in the 1980s, I got involved in the campaign to build Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside. My first vote as a Labour councillor was to end that ridiculous dispute with the council and get it built. I am very proud of that having been my first vote. I go to that theatre regularly, and it is packed with people, with tourists looking at these wonderful plays, right next door to Tate Modern. The whole area has been transformed by tourism and the arts. I knew the place as a child, when there was nothing there except a road sweepers’ depot. It is so frustrating that while our cultural offerings are so good, we make it so hard for our artists and musicians to flourish.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, mentioned the border strategy and the Government’s claim of having “the most effective” border in the world. I looked at the report and thought, “I just want a border that works.” I am quite irritated by the Government. We have all these comments—always “transformational”, always “world-beating”, always “the most effective”—but getting the job done properly would be quite nice. Stop all the rhetoric and the rubbish and just get the job done. It is very distressing. Often these things that we get from the Government do not amount to a row of beans at the end of the day. I wish they would stop. We need a little less talk, a little less pen and a bit more shovel.

The noble Lord also reminded us of the Brexit bus figure of £350 million a week for the NHS. I have not worked it out yet, but it has been three years, so that is a lot of money. We all know the situation that our NHS is in at the moment, do we not?

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the committee, for the report. I hope that the Government look at it carefully, listen to this debate, and take some action. I know that the Minister will listen very carefully. I like him very much and I am sorry that he has to be here for the Government. Perhaps another Member should have been here, but I am sure that we will get some response. I hope he takes away that there are huge issues here that we are all passionate about, and that the Government need to act.