Brexit: No-deal Tariff Schedules

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Callanan

Monday 7th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Ah, “shortly”; that wonderful word.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer. Tariffs are, of course, the simplest and most direct of the tools of trade policy. They are taxes on imports. Higher tariffs shelter domestic industries; lower tariffs increase competition and benefit consumers, so Governments should be interested in them. We are interested in the announcements that are about to be made.

Having apparently lost interest in the Trade Bill—maybe it just got lost—we should perhaps not be surprised by the way the Government have been treating tariffs. The interim announcement in March was done without consultation and with very limited debate. We have yet to see an impact assessment or even an Explanatory Memorandum. Can the Minister confirm that these important documents will be published for the next round?

There are rumours about changes that will be made to the original list, which was heavily criticised from all sectors in industry. Can the Minister say more about that? He said that he would not comment on it, but can he give us a timeline rather than just “soon”? We know that the rumour is that the statutory instrument dealing with this is to laid on 21 October, although it will be a made affirmative SI, which I understand to mean that this House will not have a chance to comment on it. Can the Minister confirm that?

Do the Government intend to have our final WTO schedules formally ratified by the WTO this time, or is this just another temporary announcement? On a related issue that bears on the same point, have we reached an agreement yet on our tariff rate quotas? We know that significant challenges by other countries have already been logged that may require substantial compensatory offers. Where are we on that? What assessment have the Government made of likely new tariffs on our exports which will be introduced by our new trading partners? Does this not just mean that UK companies will face competition from a flood of cheap imports that undercut them, putting thousands of UK jobs at risk? What remedies do the Government have in mind to counteract that?

[Lord Callanan]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. He will understand my difficulty as I cannot comment on a specific date for the announcement, but it will be made shortly.

On his question about SIs, there will be one made affirmative SI and 10 made negative SIs to implement the tariff schedules. We will introduce them as soon as possible following the tariff announcement, which, as he will know, is market sensitive. We expect to liberalise roughly 87% of tariff lines and that tariffs will be applied to roughly 13%. We do not expect to have significant changes from the previously announced regime from March. As always in these things, there is the difficulty of getting a balance between the interests of consumers and the interests of producers.

Brexit: European Commission Discussions

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Callanan

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, I am delighted to be here with your Lordships instead of in Room 10, but the noble Lord obviously forgot that we had a referendum on the subject and the people have voted to leave.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that what he actually meant in his first response is that the Chequers agreement commits the Government, of which he remains a part—we are very glad to see that—to a soft Brexit? We now know that a soft Brexit involves a common EU-UK rulebook. His former Secretary of State and Minister of State have resigned, the former saying that this approach makes any reclamation of sovereignty purely superficial. He has a point. Can the Minister say why he does not agree with his former boss?

[Lord Callanan]

The former Secretary of State can speak for himself, but I am focused on helping to deliver the Brexit that the country voted for: one that leaves the single market, one that leaves the customs union, one that leaves the common agricultural policy and common fisheries policy and one that brings back control to this Parliament and this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

The difference is that we are allowed to set our own tariff schedules under the facilitated customs arrangement.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

Perhaps the Minister would like to rephrase his original answer to me, given the news that the Foreign Secretary has just resigned.

[Lord Callanan]

I am obviously sorry to hear that the Foreign Secretary has resigned, if what the noble Lord says is correct. He has been a towering figure in government. What I said earlier still remains the Government’s policy.

Brexit: Negotiations

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Callanan

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Well, the noble Lord knows that I admire greatly his contributions on these subjects, but perhaps on this occasion he is not quite correct. The normal process of parliamentary scrutiny is appropriate. We, of course, as Ministers welcome the opportunity to account to your Lordships’ House; we will be doing that extensively over the next few months and have done over the last few months. Of course, it would be nice to see a bit more support of our position sometimes. Nevertheless, most people take a responsible attitude and want to question and probe us on the process, which is absolutely correct.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Can the Minister help us on the paper that has apparently been leaked? I know that he will not talk about the details of any leak—but on a paper that deals with the impact on GDP and various scenarios that affect us about Brexit, clearly, it would not be a leak if important documents like this were routinely made available to parliamentarians and others and we could then discuss them properly. I hope that there will be an opportunity for that.

Secondly, the paper apparently suggests that deregulating areas such as the environment, product standards and employment law could be an opportunity for the UK going forward. Who commissioned that paper? Is it true that it was his department and, if so, is that his negotiating position?

[Lord Callanan]

The analysis to which I believe the article refers is a preliminary attempt to improve on the flawed analysis around the EU referendum. It is there to test ideas and design a viable framework for the analysis of our exit from the European Union, and at this very early stage it considers only off-the-shelf trade arrangements that currently exist. We have been clear that those are not what we seek in the negotiations. It does not consider the desired outcome—the most ambitious relationship possible with the European Union, as set out by the Prime Minister in her Florence speech.