United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Graham Brady)]

Order. I did not interrupt the hon. Lady, but I would just like to remind Members, especially new ones, that if you say “your”, as in “your party”, it is a reference to my party, and it was not my party. Also, I remind people to use temperate language when they can. There were just one or two instances where the hon. Lady was sailing a little close to the wind. I just say to all Members present that there are still a lot of people on the call list. The closer to five minutes the speeches are, the more of our colleagues will be able to contribute to the debate.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I will bear your comments on timing in mind, Sir Graham, and try to rattle through. It is a pleasure to follow a very powerful speech from the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna). We may disagree on some quite fundamental things, but I very much welcome her input to this debate.

I rise to support the Bill and the Government amendments, because we need to ensure that goods and trade can flow freely across our United Kingdom without unnecessary barriers. I see regaining control of how we regulate our economy as one of the key benefits of Brexit. That is not because I want any kind of race to the bottom. I want to maintain high standards. In some areas, there is clearly a case for introducing more rigorous regulation, for example to bring an end to the live export of animals for slaughter or fattening, but regaining domestic control over regulation will enable us to produce rules that are more targeted and more effective at tackling the problem they are designed to address, and which we can update more quickly as circumstances change. All those could be crucial in improving our global competitiveness, and in supporting jobs and growth during this time of grave economic damage caused by covid-19.

I spent six years in the European Parliament before coming to this place and I was heavily involved in debates on the creation of new EU regulation. I spent nearly two years of my life on the markets in financial instruments directive. I can say, from seeing the process at first hand, that it is long and painful to produce EU legislation, and that it frequently produces outcomes that are inflexible, bureaucratic, heavy-handed and create unnecessary costs. I believe that in this House and in this nation, we can do better. We can deliver a regulatory system that is more responsive, more agile and more proportionate.

As we have heard from many speakers, and as we well know from the debate over the past year, the Northern Ireland protocol will inevitably have an impact on the flow of goods across the Irish sea. That was one of the most painful compromises that was made in reaching agreement on the withdrawal treaty. Certainly for me that was one of the things I found most difficult in deciding whether I could support it. However, there can be no doubt that the Government are pressing ahead with implementing the protocol. Extensive preparations have been made by the UK Government for a new system for compliance with both customs and sanitary and phytosanitary obligations, as required by the protocol. It is simply not true to allege that the Government, with this proposed legislation, are somehow ripping up the protocol or repudiating the treaty.

What we cannot do is let the European Union run down the clock on securing agreement on the scope of the key concept of goods at risk of being re-exported to the EU, because that would mean a default would kick in requiring customs compliance for all goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. That, of course, would lead to a full customs border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, violating article 4 of the protocol. It would also change the status of Northern Ireland within the UK, contrary to the provisions of the Belfast agreement.

Concern about the potential for the EU to adopt an unreasonable and absolutist approach to the question of goods at risk is, frankly, compounded by the Commission’s current refusal to list the UK as a country is deemed fit to export food to the EU. As Environment Secretary, I was able to secure that authorisation in the event that we had left at the end of January without an exit treaty, but I have to say that it was not an easy process. The UK’s compliance with all current EU laws, including on food and animals, should mean that giving us third country status is a straightforward administrative decision, so it is therefore very hard to understand why the EU is withholding consent, for example, for us to export products to the European Union, which it permits from countries with which it has far weaker links and which have, arguably, far less rigorous standards. They include, to take just a few, Russia, Serbia, Chile, Thailand, Ukraine and Cuba. Even the Republic of Iran is on the approved list for certain products.