European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 2nd sitting
Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

I am grateful for your guidance.

I guess the point is that sovereignty is about our ability to make laws here without intimidation or interference, but that we could find ourselves outside the EU and no longer able, for example, to introduce a tax on sugar that would reduce the cost of obesity to the NHS. We could have a situation where we want to let people know that there are six teaspoonfuls of sugar in a Müller Light yoghurt and nine in a Coca-Cola, and we want to drive down sugar content in order to drive down diabetes and health costs. Instead, we could be fined because the projection of a manufacturer of a sugar-impregnated product was less than that. That is not sovereignty. If we cannot protect our environment, our public health and our trade because we will be under the cosh with these companies suing us through the arbitration panels, that is not sovereignty. This clause should therefore be struck out, because it is completely misleading.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I actually agree with an awful lot of what the hon. Gentleman has said in terms of the construction of his argument, but his conclusions are hypothesised on a trade deal that is yet to be done. The important point about all this is that we have sovereignty over deciding what goes into the trade deal. If we do not want to put stuff into a trade deal, it does not matter what the investment courts say. They can only adjudicate on that which is in a trade deal, and what will go into a trade deal will be decided by this sovereign Parliament. That is where his conclusion is completely wrong. He was putting forward quite a strong argument to start with, and I do agree with it, but his conclusions are completely wrong given the sovereignty of this Parliament.

[Geraint Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. If there has been any lack of clarity let me make it clear that I am saying that we are in the EU at the moment and obviously do lots of trade with the EU—44% of it—and we do quite a lot of trade through the EU indirectly with America and elsewhere, so we are in a reasonable position. If we come out of the EU and suddenly find that we need to make up for lost trade, we will be under a lot of pressure to do a deal quickly with the US. We will also be in a much weaker position, because we will be standing alone.

The US is a big player and knows it, so it will try to get what it wants, as has been pointed out on sugar, fracking and other examples. What is more, it has ISDS powers as part of its normal bilateral trading agreements, and that is already recorded in trading relations. The idea suggested by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), which I respect, is that we could in theory say, “No, we don’t want this. We won’t go ahead with that.” but there would be a huge economic cost. There would also be enormous pressure, while doing all these other trade deals, to agree.

The assumption is that we could just carry on as before with all the other bilateral trading agreements with small countries such as Chile. If you were Chile, Sir Gary, you would think, “Hold on. Instead of negotiating with the big EU, I’m now negotiating with a relatively smaller UK, so I want a better deal.” Therefore, our sovereignty, in terms of our power to deliver what our electorate wants, is reduced. Our sovereignty has therefore been intrinsically undermined, rather than enhanced, which is contrary to what is being spun out here.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I completely agree with the right hon. Lady. We want to support our steel industry, which is why we are taking action on procurement. If we consider what we have done through our Royal Navy, and what we can do through Railtrack and other organisations, we should back British Steel. We will also exempt heavy energy users such as British Steel from the higher electricity charges, and that rather goes to the questions asked by the Leader of the Opposition. If we endlessly push up bills for everybody else, it costs even more to exempt the high energy users, and that is why we need a balanced programme. Everything that we can do to help British Steel— including a clear infrastructure plan that the House will hear a bit more about in a moment—is all to the good.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Q14. In 2010, unemployment in Wyre Forest stood at around 5% of the working population, but it has now dropped to just 1.6%. Does my right hon. Friend agree that to help those who are still unemployed, and to boost productivity and wages in places such as Wyre Forest, we should offer more opportunities for skills and training? What more can the Government offer to help places such as Wyre Forest?

[The Prime Minister]

Our vision is that all young people aged 18 should have a real choice of either being able to take up an apprenticeship—we are planning for 3 million in this Parliament—or being able to go to one of our universities. We do not want anybody left behind; everyone should have that choice. My hon. Friend is right that unemployment has fallen in his constituency, as around the country. We will hear from the Chancellor in a minute about what has happened over the past five years, but the fact is that Britain, over those five years, has grown as fast as any other G7 country in terms of our economic performance. We can now look back and see that the decisions made in 2010, 2011 and 2012 were difficult decisions but they laid the platform for sustained economic growth and jobs.