Customs Safety and Security Procedures (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the comments that have been made welcoming my noble friend to the Front Bench. I support the regulations that we are discussing today but I have some questions; I hope my noble friend can reassure me.

If we have a no deal, the culture at the ports and on the border in Ireland could change. Other member states may be less concerned about what is sent to us in the UK than they have been in the past. I note that there will be a 12-month period when no safety and security declarations will be required. That is probably sensible, to keep the lorries rolling, but, to put it simply, we in this House need to understand what will happen with the enforcement of important laws at the ports and on the border. How will we stop the import of illegal migrants, dangerous knives, machine guns and cocaine—all the things that the Home Office, very sensibly, tries to keep out—let alone illegal cultural works, exotic plants and animals that are prohibited from coming into the UK? What will happen at the ports and on the Irish border? Can the House have some reassurance about how these laws will be enforced in the transitional period and in the longer term?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his new role. It will be interesting to see if he will be the permanent Treasury representative; it is an onerous task that has worn out many a noble Lord.

I am generally unhappy with Explanatory Memorandums and the Minister has gone out of his way to make my point for me. His speech illustrated how an Explanatory Memorandum should be. It is about imports, exports, empty bits and combined declarations. That I can understand but not much more because I do not understand the export and import business. I hope the Minister forgives my somewhat naive questions. It seems that these regulations are designed to create frictionless trade. Unlike the other instruments, there is no problem with deal or no deal because the powers are discretionary in all cases; if there is a deal HMRC can withdraw its discretion.

Taking imports first, the regulations say that there will be no requirement for declarations on any imports from EU countries for 12 months. That is simple and straightforward. What I do not understand is whether EU countries—I was about to say the French—will require the declarations to be generated, even if we do not want them. I do not understand what WTO rules say on things like that. Is there a worldwide agreement that these declarations should be flying about unless there is an equivalent mechanism, which the EU has internally? I hope the Minister will be able to answer the question of whether the French will feel the need to require declarations to be made. The reverse of that is the key question the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked. We may not want to make declarations for 12 months for our exports, but how will EU countries react to that? Are these declarations pieces of paper? I do not really understand. When you get to Calais do you say, “Here is my declaration; the British have said this is good”? Will lorries without these declarations, having avoided a friction problem on this side of the Channel, end up in a big lorry park while they somehow or another overcome this process?

Finally, I did go through all the paragraphs and paragraph 3.2 talks about public notices being issued when these discretionary factors come into effect. I have trouble with the fact that it is being done by the made affirmative process; clearly, had the Government started earlier it would not be urgent. If there is a need for a public notice for these things to happen, should that public notice not already have been published?

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[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord makes a very fair point, but I reassure him that this impact assessment is not solely on this SI and is not an effort to try to mislead the Chamber. It is the overall HMRC impact assessment that covers, I believe, duties and the impact of all these measures. Its publication today is an effort to get it out as quickly as possible, and it is coincidental to the fact that we are discussing this specific SI. It is the updating of a previous impact assessment which is, I believe, more than six months old and has been available on the website for some time. If I can provide some clarification on where it can be found, I would be happy to share it. It refers to all the measures contained in this SI.

Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked why we are using the urgent procedure under the EU withdrawal Act after giving assurances that we would not do so. The truth is that the number of times we have used the urgent procedure is very low indeed—minimal, even. I pay tribute to officials at HMRC and the Treasury for getting through a huge amount of work to get the legislative frameworks in place to prepare for a potential no-deal Brexit. On the eve of prorogation, when certain clocks on SIs that were laid before the House are ticking down, it made sense to use the urgent procedure to make sure that the request of industry and HMRC could be reassuringly executed so in this instance we decided to do that. This has been a really valuable debate—

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

I hate to be picky, but I asked only one substantive question, which is whether the French have to agree to any of this.

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord asked a very good question. I apologise for not putting it at the top of the list because it is absolutely right. No. This is a matter for the UK. France and other EU member states will have their own requirements for safety and security which UK businesses will have to comply with if entering or leaving those countries. No waiver from them is necessary as this is purely domestic law. I hope that that answers the question clearly.

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[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord puts it very well. The truth is that, in order to execute the SI before us, we do not require EU permission, which I think was the substance of the noble Lord’s initial question.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My question is on very much the same point. We are creating this SI, and I entirely accept that it is within domestic law to create a frictionless border, but if at the other side of the border there is a piece of EU bureaucracy—I must call it that rather than French bureaucracy—then the exercise becomes a bit pointless.

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, in this Chamber we can execute only what is within the realms of our legislative ability. These are the measures that the industry and HMRC have sought from us. Negotiations with the EU to create the right kind of border will take place in the future. What we are trying to do here is to put in place whatever we can do as a country to have the best possible framework for our importers and exporters.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Perhaps the Minister might like to reflect on this conversation and see whether any of his colleagues could add some colour to that answer. There are quite a lot of deals relating to no-deal situations—I believe the EU calls them bonus deals—and I would be grateful, if there is further information, if he could write to us both.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

This will be the last time I jump to my feet. If the Minister is coming back to the very sensible suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, might he expand a little on our discussions with the Irish Government? The European Union is land-bordered with the United Kingdom, and if this is applying only to those who are importing goods from the European Union, which would cover the Northern Ireland border, but there is no reciprocal mechanism for those exporting, then this would apply to the Irish Government, who are the European Union. What discussions have there been and where would we, in Parliament, be able to understand the position of the Irish Government where this 12-month period could be completely intolerable? Of course, it can be solved by not leaving without a deal, but if we do leave without a deal—which is prohibited by law, but if the Government are determined to get around it—what is the position of the Irish Government and how do we know?