No-deal Brexit: Schedule of Tariffs Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateStewart Hosie
Main Page: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)Department Debates - View all Stewart Hosie's debates with the Department for International Trade
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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This Government take great pride in the number of those agreements that we have transitioned into continuity agreements. There are many more on the cusp of being agreed. We are dealing with some technical issues and there is ongoing engagement all the time. I was recently in Algeria and Morocco, where we are making substantial progress, and I returned yesterday evening from Vietnam—you might say that I am in another time zone, Mr Speaker, while the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) is on another planet. Even in Vietnam there is significant interest in coming to a continuity agreement with the UK. We will continue to work to deliver those. Of course, as my right hon. Friend and I will both agree, it would be much better if we did not have to go to continuity agreements but instead got the best continuity agreement, which would be a new agreement between ourselves and the European Union, which I hope the Opposition will finally support.
When the temporary tariff regime was announced this March, the UK Government argued that if they maintained the current external tariff regime, there would be new tariffs on EU imports. They said that if zero tariffs were maintained with the EU, even though that would minimise trade disruption, that would be required to be extended to the rest of the world due to WTO rules. The Government also said that they would keep 43 of the existing trade remedy measures that were in place, but much has changed since then. There has been another round of US tariffs and there is the potential for another round of EU tariffs in response to the US action, so let me ask the Minister this.
Given new tariffs from the US and the EU, has the schedule in the temporary tariff regime changed and, if so, by how much? Has the list of 43 trade remedies to be kept and 66 to be abandoned changed and, if so, by how many? Most importantly, with barely three weeks to go to a potential no-deal Brexit—although the Benn Act should protect us from that—I say to the Minister that it is not irresponsible to publish the new schedule. It is absolutely necessary to publish it, not least to allow businesses—importing and exporting businesses alike—at least a little certainty and to ensure that they can continue to operate within the law. The Minister is having a great time teasing us about when the schedule will be published, so may I ask him to publish it today so that businesses understand precisely what they are dealing with?