UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Regions and Industrial Sectors

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that there are huge opportunities from Brexit, and we are taking those forward as set out in the Government’s legislative programme: a subsidy control Bill, a procurement Bill, a National Insurance Contributions Bill, a freeports programme and so on. These are all huge opportunities. It might be premature to do an immediate evaluation of the effect of all those before they have been introduced and brought into force, but of course impact assessments will go with the necessary legislation in this area.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister is well aware of the excellent work of the Centre for European Reform under its director, Charles Grant. I would like his reaction to the latest report authored by its distinguished economist John Springford, published on 12 May, about the first quarter of trade data. The conclusion is that

“leaving the single market and customs union had reduced UK trade by 11 per cent in March 2021. That is on top of a 10 per cent hit to trade between the referendum and leaving the single market.”

He goes on to say that several more months have to pass before we can be certain of these impacts, but that

“it is becoming clearer that the impact cannot be dismissed as temporary.”

Does the Minister agree? Is he proposing to set in hand immediately a review of how these problems can be mitigated?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I looked at the CER report with a lot of interest. It is one in a series of reports that has, I think, been subject to some methodological debate, at least. I am not sure I personally think it entirely valid to set up a kind of mock economy based on other parallel economies and draw conclusions from that, which I understand to be the methodology. I do not think we dispute that there have been changes in trade patterns in recent months, but as the ONS said in its report published on Tuesday:

“It is difficult to fully detangle the impact the coronavirus and EU exit had on UK and international trade while they are still having an influence.”


That remains the case.