Leaving the EU: Economic Impact of Proposed Deal

Debate between Mel Stride and Stephen Timms

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

This Government totally understand and get the significant importance—not just to Scotland but to the entire United Kingdom—of Scotch whisky exports, which account for some 20% of all exports of food and drink from our country. That was also signalled in our recent Budget, which once again froze duty on Scotch whisky. The hon. Lady can rest assured that we will make sure that we do the right thing by Scotland’s most important export.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Department’s assessment is that any form of Brexit will leave us worse off than if we stayed in the European Union. Will the Minister simply confirm that that is his Department’s view?

[Mel Stride]

The analysis, quite rightly, does not assess staying in the European Union, and there is an obvious reason for that, which is that in June 2016 the country took the decision—17.4 million people voted—to leave the European Union, and that is an outcome that this Government will respect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on consumer prices of new non-tariff barriers in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

Last year, the Government published a comprehensive assessment of the impact of our departure from the European Union, covering four different scenarios and looking at the effect on GDP and GDP per capita on exports and imports. That analysis is available on gov.uk.

[Stephen Timms]

The British Retail Consortium estimates that if we leave the EU without a deal, new non-tariff barriers will add on average 29% to the cost of food imports from the EU, on top of new import duties on food. The Chancellor was surely right in his call to business leaders to argue for no deal to be taken off the table. Will he continue to press the Prime Minister to do so?

[Mel Stride]

What we will continue is our extensive planning for the possibility of a no-deal, day-one exit to make sure that our ports are indeed flowing and goods are moving, including food. But the best way to ensure that we have the right conditions for UK consumers is to back the deal that has been negotiated with the European Union.

Leaving the EU: UK Ports (Customs)

Debate between Mel Stride and Stephen Timms

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I have no doubt that that is just one more example of where facilitations and technology can ensure that goods move efficiently across a customs frontier.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Does the Minister recognise that if there is no trade deal with the European Union, it will be a breach of World Trade Organisation rules to apply checks and tariffs to non-EU goods but not to EU goods?

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that under WTO terms we would have to treat the various countries equally, but we are confident that there will be a deal. Indeed, we made huge progress on the phase 1 issues in December and have heard just today that we are looking clearly at an agreement on the implementation period. We will be going forward for further agreement with the European Union on a deal for this country and the EU.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T3. Together with the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has a Late, Missing and Incorrect initiative to look into the problems with real-time pay-as-you-earn information—problems that may well explain many of the errors we see in universal credit awards. The Financial Secretary gave me a helpful answer on this topic in October. What progress has he made on quantifying those three problems—late, missing and incorrect—and what hopes does he have for the improvement of RTI quality?

[Mel Stride]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Late, Missing and Incorrect initiative is there to drive up the accuracy of the real-time information as it passes between employers and HMRC. As he stresses, it is important to ensuring that universal credit is rolled out effectively. On his specific question about statistics, we believe that the level is around 5% or 6% across those three areas. We are continuously driving down those figures, particularly in response to the post-implementation review.