Customs and Borders

Debate between Norman Lamb and Owen Smith

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I begin by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for securing today’s debate, which has been incredibly important, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for liberating me to speak. It was extremely generous of him, and I intend to make full use of it.

I want to do something unusual in my new free-speaking, freewheeling role and agree with one of the things said by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). She said that there has been a great deal of dishonesty in this debate, and she is completely right. It is pretty much the only thing that I agree with her on, but dishonesty has been the hallmark of the Brexiteers’ arguments before, during and after the referendum. I am sorry to break with the more consensual, collegiate tone that many Members have struck, but we need a bit of truth telling in this debate. We need to be clear about the risks that we face as a country and clear about some of the fibs that were told to the country during the process.

As a former shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and as someone in the Labour party who feels a huge degree of pride about all we did to bring about an end to 30 years of civil war in a part of our country, we cannot countenance any return to any hard border in Northern Ireland. It would be utterly unconscionable for this place to allow that to happen. When the Chief Constable of the Police Service in Northern Ireland is warning us all publicly—a pretty remarkable thing for him to do—that we risk the return of a hard border that would jeopardise the safety and security of his officers and of the people of Northern Ireland and when that view is shared across the political divide in Northern Ireland, this place must listen.

The situation was not discussed prior to the referendum, when it was not clear that we were going to jeopardise peace in Ireland. If there is to be any sort of harder border in Northern Ireland, it is now clear that we run the risk of jeopardising that peace. That is the first and most important thing that I have to say, and that alone should cause us to pause and say, “We must stay in the customs union and the single market.” The truth is that staying in the customs union is insufficient to guarantee that we will not, over time, have a return to a hard border on the island of Ireland. Regulatory divergence unfolding over a longer period will be the one thing—more than the short-term effect of customs tariffs at the border—that will guarantee the return of the hard border, which cannot be countenanced by this place. If we allow it to happen, we would be betraying the people of the Northern Ireland and the national interests of this country

Let me turn briefly to the economic effects of Brexit, because we need some truth telling there, too. Brexit is already damaging the economic this country’s wellbeing. The International Monetary Fund said just this week that the only G7 country that will not grow at anything like the almost 4% that the world is predicted to grow at over the next period is the UK, and its view is that that is due to Brexit. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the OECD and the Government hold the same view. The Government’s own projections clearly show that with the very best outcome, which is staying in the single market and the customs union, we will still see a reduction in GDP of around 2%, which is equivalent to the change we saw after the 2008 crash.

[Norman Lamb]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Brexiteers’ claim that we have to leave the customs union to grow our trade with the rest of the world is just grossly misleading? Germany exports £77 billion to China against our £22 billion, so we have every opportunity within the customs union to grow our trade wherever we want. It is down to us, not the rules of the customs union.