Leaving the EU: UK Ports (Customs)

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

We have made it clear that once we have exited the implementation period, the European Court of Justice will have no further remit. We will take back our laws, to be determined by our courts at every level, including the Supreme Court.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I reaffirm what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said earlier. On Thursday night, the Secretary of State for Transport promised a Dover studio audience that there would be no customs checks on goods vehicles passing through UK ports following our exit from the European Union. The Minister dodged every question that my right hon. Friend asked, but I will give him another opportunity to answer some of them.

It stands in complete contradiction to the Government’s wider position that, unlike Labour, they will not seek to form a customs union with EU member states after the transition period. Will the Minister confirm that it is now Government policy to discard protections on goods travelling into the country through a customs union while also refusing to check goods vehicles as a requirement to entry? Will he explain how tariffs will be applied and enforced without goods vehicles being checked by customs officials? Surely that would be in breach of World Trade Organisation rules—unless he knows something different. Can he give a single example of a nation that does not rely on either a customs union agreement or customs enforcement at its border? What are the Government’s plans to manage our trade relationships, to protect our own producers and to uphold environmental protections without either a customs agreement or border enforcement?

We all thought that the Government’s “cake and eat it” Brexit strategy was wildly misguided, but they now seem to have put us into a worse position that even fails to meet the low bar set by the Brexit Secretary when he committed to avoiding a “Mad Max-style”, “dystopian” Brexit. The Minister must set out clearly which of the options the Government are going to choose. Is it a customs union, as proposed by Labour, or goods checks at the borders? Or is it neither, as his Cabinet colleague has promised? For the sake of business confidence and planning, and of economic stability and continuity, will the Minister please ask the Chancellor to do us a favour and get to grips with the Government’s hokey-cokey Brexit policy, and tell the Transport Secretary—in the Defence Secretary’s words—to “go away” and “shut up”?

[Mel Stride]

Well, we waited a long time to get to the end of that, and I am not sure whether we are any wiser as a consequence.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are leaving the customs union, and I set out in my opening remarks the two models that we are intent upon progressing with our European partners. I also stressed that we will arrive at a solution that is as frictionless as possible. I have been down to Dover to meet the organisation that runs the port, and also the Border Force personnel who are engaged with it, and I am fully familiar with the importance of a frictionless border. Of course, the other important news that we have had today is that we have concluded, subject to the European Council meeting this week, an implementation period for the arrangements, which will not only give us additional valuable time to provide certainty to businesses, but ensure that we have all the arrangements in place for a successful customs system going forward.