EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement
Vicky Ford Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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George Hollingbery
Not for now.
The EU’s principled long-term ban on the import of whale products will not be lifted by the agreement, and the UK and the EU remain strongly committed to the international convention on trade in endangered species and the work of the International Whaling Commission.
The UK has a wealth of experience in producing the finest foods and drinks across all corners of the country. The agreement secures the protection of Scotch whisky, Scottish farmed salmon, Irish whiskey, Irish cream, west country farmhouse cheddar and both white and blue Stilton. I am proud that those products are safeguarded by the EPA.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister on his new role. He is making a strong case for this excellent EU-Japan deal, and we should embrace it. Does he agree that the UK-EU partnership that we will be looking for should be even deeper and better, especially in areas such as digital, services and common standards to facilitate our trade?
George Hollingbery
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we should seek to do the widest, deepest and most ambitious trade deal that we possibly can.
In the light of the European Court of Justice opinion on competence in the EU-Singapore FTA of May 2017, which helped to clarify the scope of the common commercial policy, the Japan EPA is to be concluded as an EU-only agreement. That means that it will fully enter into force once Japan has ratified it, should the European Council and the European Parliament support its conclusion. I am aware of the implications of this approach on the role of Parliament in the scrutiny and conclusion of the EPA, and of EU-only trade agreements going forward, because it means that ratification by Parliament is not required for an agreement to enter fully into force. I am also acutely aware of Parliament’s interest in the Government’s approach to the scrutiny of future UK trade deals and trade policy. That is one reason why I welcome the opportunity to debate the EU-Japan EPA today, as it rightly ensures that Parliament has the fullest opportunity to scrutinise the agreement, under the current EU scrutiny structure. I am pleased to be able to go beyond what is simply required ahead of signature, in line with the Government’s commitment to transparency.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Ford Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Mr Speaker
I call the Minister for Women and Equalities, on her debut at the Dispatch Box in this capacity I think: Penny Mordaunt.
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Penny Mordaunt)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am delighted to be here in my new role as Minister for Women and Equalities on International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, and I hope all Members of this House will show their support to that cause today.
The Government have committed in our careers strategy to improving information and guidance on STEM careers. We are also raising awareness of the range of careers that STEM qualifications offer.
Vicky Ford
I welcome the Minister to her new responsibilities and thank her for her commitment to women studying science and maths.
In Britain the percentage of women doing engineering is the worst in Europe: fewer than one in five of those studying physics A-level are female. I am going straight from here to the Institute of Physics. Will the Minister back up the Government’s words with action: break the deadlock and support prizes and grants for girls studying physics?
Penny Mordaunt
I will certainly do that. My hon. Friend can take that message very strongly to the meeting she is about to attend, and I thank her for the work she is doing to promote these careers and qualifications to girls. We fund the Stimulating Physics Network, which provides schools with the means to improve progression to physics A-level. The network provides activities specifically to increase the proportion of girls taking physics A-level.
European Affairs
Vicky Ford Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman knows full well that this is not an either/or situation: it is not a choice between having trade with the European Union or with the rest of the world. The Government’s objectives are clear, namely, to secure a deep and comprehensive partnership with the European Union while still being able—crucially, outside the customs union—to pursue an independent trade policy and to secure those agreements with the rest of the world.
On what was said during the campaign, the Department for International Trade has the capability in place and we have built up the Department. I have mentioned the 14 trade working groups. We are clearly not able to carry out a trade negotiation while we are still members of the European Union, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be demanding that we have those negotiations while at the same time saying that we should stay in the EU, which would prevent us from having the negotiations in the first place.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the incredible depth and complexity of the UK’s trade with Europe, there is no off-the-shelf solution available from any other trade relationship? Does he also agree that, if we are to have as frictionless trade as possible, there clearly needs to be some form of agreement for what will happen at our customs, such as a partnership or another type of agreement?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is right on both counts. There is no off-the-shelf agreement that would be suitable in this case. We are clear that we are seeking a bespoke arrangement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Neither something like the comprehensive economic and trade agreement nor something like the European economic area would be suitable. On co-operation, we are clear that we seek a good agreement with the European Union that creates as frictionless trade as possible across all our borders, not just the internal border on the island of Ireland.
Greg Hands
No. I am about to finish.
Nevertheless, the Department for International Trade is preparing this country for life outside the EU. We are proceeding with trade and customs Bills that will give us a functioning customs regime on day one. As one would expect, they have been designed to prepare us for every eventuality, although they will be needed regardless of the outcome of our negotiations with the EU. They will give us a strong trade remedies regime. Free trade does not mean trade without rules, but Labour opposed these new powers when they were considered on Second Reading. Our independent trade remedies regime will allow us to protect UK industry from unfair dumping or subsidy, while balancing its interests against the interests of UK consumers and other UK businesses. It will be delivered through an independent trade remedies authority, so that businesses have the confidence they need that it will be impartial and will not act against the interests of wider industry. I want to make sure that this new regime works as well for business as it should from the start. We are consulting on which existing EU trade remedies we should carry over, and I encourage any business with an interest to respond before the consultation closes at the end of this month, and any Members with producer or consumer interests to help to publicise this.
The Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill will also allow us to create a UK unilateral trade preferences regime for developing countries. Shockingly, this was also opposed by Labour, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats on Second Reading. The UK is a proud advocate of supporting developing countries to reduce poverty through trade, and I hope that Labour will reconsider its stance. This Bill will let us continue the UK’s existing system of preferential access for developing countries, which reduces or removes import tariffs from a number of countries, while also allowing us to explore improvements on the EU’s current system.
Leaving the European Union will allow us to negotiate trade deals across the world, but at the same time, this Government understand the importance of EU trade. That is why we seek a deep and special partnership with the EU. This is the only appropriate option. Members of all parties should be optimistic that that can be achieved.
Matthew Pennycook
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I could not have put it better myself.
The theme of today’s debate is international trade. The sections relating to customs were arguably the least convincing parts of the Prime Minister’s speech. In contrast to other areas, there was no attempt to engage with the hard truths about what leaving the customs union will mean for the UK, and particularly with the impact of that decision on manufacturing and the Irish border. As the House knows, the Prime Minister simply went back to the two propositions that the Government set out in their future partnership paper published on 15 August last year. They were a
“customs partnership between the UK and the EU”
or
“a highly streamlined customs arrangement, where we”—
that is, the UK—
“would jointly agree to implement a range of measures to minimise frictions to trade, together with specific provisions for Northern Ireland.”
The first proposition is untried and untested. By the Government’s own admission, it would take at least five years to implement and it would be ripe for abuse. It was roundly rejected by the EU last year, not least because it would require EU member states to completely reconfigure their own national customs systems. The idea is not simply “blue sky thinking”, as the Secretary of State described it in September last year; it is pie-in-the-sky thinking.
The second option would, according to the chief executive of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, take three years to put in place and would result in friction on our borders. It would therefore require a range of measures, including unproven “technology-based solutions”, to minimise frictions to trade. In her speech, the Prime Minister claimed that both those options were serious and merited consideration, but they were widely rubbished in the wake of that speech. The EU immediately ruled them out as non-starters.
The truth is that the Government have absolutely no idea about what to do about the issue of customs and the Irish border. The fall-back that surfaced in the EU Commission draft legal text published on 28 February—namely, that Northern Ireland should go into a customs union with the south and that the UK border should be shifted to somewhere in the Irish sea—is clearly unacceptable. The Prime Minister quite rightly made it clear that no UK Prime Minister could accept such an outcome. The Irish border issue remains unresolved.
One part of a wider solution to the border issue would be, as the Opposition have suggested, to negotiate a new comprehensive UK-EU customs union. Such a customs union would ensure that goods covered by the agreement could still be traded with the EU tariff free, with no new customs or rules of origin checks. The exact terms of such a customs union would, of course, have to be negotiated, but this represents a pragmatic proposal, reflecting current arrangements, and it has been welcomed by trade unions and by business, including the Manufacturers Organisation—formerly the EEF—and the CBI. It would be a win-win for both the UK and the EU27. A new UK-EU customs union would not prevent the UK from trading globally or improving our export industry, just as the EU customs union has not stopped Germany making China its largest trading partner, for example. Germany now exports four times more to China than the UK. The UK would still be free, as we are now, to negotiate in the areas of services, data, investment, procurement and intellectual property, and UK businesses would still be able to export to non-EU markets just as other EU countries do. In short, there is no question but that the UK could and would still increase trade inside a customs union with the EU, as the Secretary of State for International Trade said earlier this year in relation to the Prime Minister’s visit to China.
A new, comprehensive UK-EU customs union, were it agreed, would of course require the UK to adopt a common external tariff with the EU, and we would of course seek both to replicate existing EU trade agreements and benefit from negotiated future deals. It is true that we would not be able to negotiate independent third-party trade deals, but as many hon. Members have already mentioned, we need to face up to some hard facts in this area, because the notion that future free trade agreements will offset the inevitable economic costs of exiting a customs union with the EU is nonsense. To say, as the Minister did, that it is simply not an either/or question does not get to the heart of the issue that confronts us.
Vicky Ford
When the hon. Gentleman says that he wants to stay in a customs union with the EU, will he confirm that he will continue to comply with EU state aid and competition law as a condition of staying in that customs union? I cannot find a single example of a country that can stay in the customs union while disregarding state aid laws.
Matthew Pennycook
The hon. Lady has great expertise in this area, but I think she has slightly misjudged the fact, as I understand it, that that is not about customs, but about the elements that make up the single market. We have said that we would seek, in principle, to negotiate protections, clarifications or exemptions where necessary, but I cannot imagine a situation in which those exemptions would be necessary. As I think the Leader of the Opposition said on “Peston on Sunday” some time ago, there is nothing in the current state aid rules that would prevent us from implementing, for example, our manifesto.
Many hon. Members have already mentioned this, but Sir Martin Donnelly, the former permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade, said that the reality is that what the Government are proposing is akin to giving up
“a three-course meal... for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future”.
The EU currently constitutes 44% of our exports and 53% of our imports. It must be our priority. Increases in trade from new free trade agreements with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined would be worth less than 3% of our current trade in goods and services.
Matthew Pennycook
I am just coming to a close.
The draft withdrawal agreement merely needs to include a political declaration on the future relationship—that is, its broad outlines—with the details to be hammered out after the UK has left the EU.
Matthew Pennycook
I will not give way.
But the Irish border issue is an integral part of the withdrawal agreement. Without a solution to it, it is very difficult to imagine how the Government secure an orderly exit deal or a transition period, let alone a post-Brexit trade deal.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
This is an extremely important debate. The 27 other countries in the EU make up our largest trading partner, which accounts for almost half our trade. Many thousands of jobs on both sides of the channel rely on that trade. This is a sensitive time for the most complex negotiations for a generation. Businesses need clarity, especially about what will happen at our borders. They need to know what our long-term trade will look like, especially in key 21st-century sectors such as pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing and the service sector. They also need clarity on what transition or implementation will look like.
Honesty and transparency are needed, but let us look at the Opposition’s offer. They say that they want to negotiate a customs union with the EU, but the Leader of the Opposition stood up in Coventry and said that he wanted to negotiate exemptions in relation to privatisation, competition and state aid rules. The week after that, I was in Brussels. Not a single country that has a customs union with the EU has an exemption for state aid rules. Even Turkey has to comply with all state aid and competition rules, in accordance with the EU treaties and/or EU laws. When I was in Brussels, time and again I asked politicians from other EU countries whether they would give the UK preferred access to the single market and a customs union with the EU but also allow us an exemption from state aid rules. Time and again, those politicians looked at me and rolled their eyes. The Opposition’s position is not honest or achievable, and I believe it is deeply misleading.
In trade negotiations, the devil is in the detail. The Prime Minister’s speech was very welcome. It moved us on with a huge amount of detail, and I especially welcomed the detail about the aviation sector, the tech sector, the science and innovation pact—boy, do we need to continue co-operation on science and innovation—and security.
I want to focus on three areas. On services, UK sales to the EU in services are 40% of our trade. The sector has grown as a percentage of our trade in nearly every year. In today’s modern economy, we cannot separate goods and services. My mobile phone, for example, feels like a good, but its contents are all services. If a cancer scanner is sold in Europe, it is sold with a maintenance contract—a service. I am about to buy a new car, and it will come with a financial lease arrangement—a financial service. Walking away with no deal on services is not a good deal. It is especially not good for financial services. Some 2,000 people in my constituency work in insurance, but many hundreds of thousands of German savers have bought life insurance products from British companies. Both sides need a deal that covers services.
On borders and the customs union, while we need an agreement about what happens at our borders, there is much more to the customs union and negotiations than just tariffs. In particular, we need to resolve the country of origin rules for complex manufactured products. The British car sector employs about 169,000 people directly and nearly 1 million indirectly. Many of the cars it produces contain components from all over the EU. Under WTO rules, those cars are not European enough to be European cars or British enough to be British cars. They would become orphan cars, if I may put it like that, and not eligible under any of our trade agreements with the EU or elsewhere. That is why it is particularly helpful that the Prime Minister has left open the negotiations on not just a customs agreement, but a customs partnership, which is an offer for us to mirror EU customs codes at our borders.
My third point, which is really important, is about transition. The transition period needs to be agreed now, because otherwise real issues will arise for people who work in the City and with goods. On the back of my mobile phone is a CE mark. Every product put on the market in Europe has one, and anything that is imported to the UK needs a CE mark. The mark is offered with a 12-month certificate. If a mobile phone is imported into the UK from elsewhere in the world, it will need a certificate that is valid past not just the end of this March, but the end of next March. Unless we resolve transition this month, what happens to CE marks on goods placed on the market here and elsewhere in Europe will not be resolved. There are not enough notified bodies elsewhere in Europe to take the place of the British notified bodies today.
I am grateful to the Government for getting us to the negotiating point to date, for achieving the deal in December and for the great moves forward and detail in the Prime Minister’s speech a couple of weeks ago. Let us resolve the transition period by the end of the month—that is crucial—and let us not lose sight of the devil in the detail of the negotiations ahead. The Leader of the Opposition’s position is not achievable, and we need to focus on finding deals that are.
Vicky Ford
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case about the EEA and EFTA, although it is unfortunate that he described the Canada deal as a chocolate teapot, because it did give free trade in chocolate.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. This is meant to be a quick intervention—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. There is no “quickly” about it, because you will need to explain to the Front Benchers when I cut their contributions down to eight minutes each. It is an intervention, not a speech. I call Stephen Kinnock.
Stephen Kinnock
In short, if we are looking for a common-sense Brexit that strikes a pragmatic balance between prosperity and sovereignty, the EEA is the only game in town. It will allow maximum access to the single market, with the ability to reform free movement, resolve the Northern Ireland issue, end the jurisdiction of the ECJ and, above all, reunite our deeply divided country.
Vicky Ford
The problem with the EEA is that we would have to cut and paste all EU rules, especially on key sectors such as financial services. Would it not be better to fight for a bespoke deal?
Stephen Kinnock
As I have said, it has to be a blend of a template and a bespoke deal. The Government have fundamentally failed to understand that, first of all, these negotiations must create common ground—a territory based on models and templates that are familiar to both sides at the negotiating table. Of course, things can then be tweaked and finessed, but the basic model of the EEA gives us the architecture and certainty for which the country is so desperately crying out. That approach would also have put the British Government on the front foot, rather than leaving a vacuum into which the EU has been obliged to step.
The referendum exposed many of the deep divisions that have existed in our country for many years—divisions between young and old, town and city, graduate and non-graduate. Those divisions came together as we coalesced behind “tribe remain” or “tribe leave”. We must not allow the tribalism of the referendum to define our destiny. We must come together. We must find a way to reunite this country, find compromise between remain and leave, and place that compromise at the heart of our negotiating strategy. In the EEA-EFTA model, we have the answer to protecting market access, jobs and opportunities; to a frictionless border in Northern Ireland; and to the call to take back control on immigration, in our courts and in this place. Let us come together, reunite Britain and build an EEA-based Brexit.
Oral Answers to Questions
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
This legislation was passed in 1995 to create an equality between men and women. Those who seek to change the legislation would be effectively creating an inequality between men and women on an ongoing basis that has a dubious nature in law and an inequality between 1950s-born women and 1960s-born women.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Amber Rudd
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is so important to protect women particularly, who get the largest share of abuse, from the type of attacks that can put them off participating in public life. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced a review that the Law Commission will do to ensure that what we say—what is illegal offline is illegal online—is actually the case and that the law is following that guidance. We will come back to the House with further updates.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for all she does to champion Chelmsford exporters, building on her great expertise in the European Parliament and elsewhere.
The Department does huge amounts to support small businesses to export and, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade Policy explained earlier, we are seeing significant success in that regard. Baroness Fairhead recently announced a new great export readiness tool on great.gov.uk to help SMEs better to understand how export-ready they are and what they can do to start exporting or to expand their exporting activity.
Trade Bill
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Barry Gardiner
I am very happy to respond to my hon. Friend, and I understand the distinctions she is making, but she will also understand what I have already set out about the force of the treaties, which is simply a matter of law. We will not be bound by the treaties and therefore we would not be able to continue as a member of the EU, and therefore as a member of the EU customs union, although, as I have pointed out, we could then come back and form a customs union with the European Union.
My hon. Friend asked specifically about Turkey’s relationship with the European Union. Turkey has a customs union agreement with the EU customs union, but it is not a member of the EU customs union—she should be aware of that—and there is therefore an asymmetry in the way in which its trade relations are conducted. The EU conducts the deals and agreements with third-party countries on behalf of Turkey that set its tariffs and quotas. Indeed, that has caused Turkey great concern, because while the Mexico-EU agreement means that Mexico can import cars into Turkey tariff-free, there is no reciprocal liberalisation of Mexico’s markets for Turkey’s textiles, and Turkey is extremely aggrieved about that.
Were we to have the same arrangement, we could be in a position in which the European Union concluded an agreement with the United States—for example, perhaps along the lines of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which many Members would have concerns about—to the detriment of this country but the advantage of the European Union, which we would have no control over, and without liberalising US markets to British exports. That would be an extremely bad deal indeed. I trust that fully answers my hon. Friend’s question.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Barry Gardiner
The right hon. Lady is free to suggest whatever she likes. I have dealt with the customs union at great length this afternoon and made our position quite clear.
All information exchanged between the UK and US officials will be kept secret until four years after the working group has been concluded. That is why hon. Members should not take on trust any verbal reassurances that the Government or the Secretary of State might give this afternoon. One has to establish good faith to earn trust.
Barry Gardiner
On transparency, yes. The hon. Lady has been very persistent, so I will give way.
Vicky Ford
If I may, I want to take the hon. Gentleman back to his suggestion that the European Parliament is somehow a far more transparent organisation when it comes to discussions on trade deals, especially trade deals with the US. My memory is that the discussions with trade negotiators and MEPs were held behind closed doors, with only trade committee members and committee chairs present. The papers held by the European Parliament were all kept behind closed doors and were not transparent. I have heard the Minister say that he wants us to have a transparent process in which the House will be consulted and able to scrutinise future trade deals in a better manner.
Barry Gardiner
Look, the hon. Lady is of course right that the European Union held a lot of those discussions in private, particularly over TTIP. However, she may be unaware though that although European Members of Parliament were able to access the text of the TTIP agreement, this Secretary of State refused for nine months to set up a reading room so that Members of this House could access the very same information that was available to her colleagues in the European Union.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
It is enormously important that as we move through the period of the Brexit negotiations and into the future, we give businesses and consumers stability and continuity in trade agreements—not only in our trade relationship with the EU, but in our relationships with the 60-odd other countries with which we currently trade via our relationship with the EU. We are living in a time of unprecedented change in the world, with the fourth industrial revolution and the digital revolution, and trading flows are ever-changing. It is crucial that at this time we hold on to the principles and remember the benefits of free trade. Free trade is not just about helping big business; it brings benefits for all. Opening markets brings opportunities for exporters and importers, large and small. Those businesses can then help to deliver growth, real jobs and opportunities. For consumers, trade brings more choice and lower prices.
It is incredibly important that we look at what this Bill does and does not do, because the entirety of our new FTAs will not be set just in this one move. This is an enabling Bill that maintains the right of British companies to bid on government procurement contracts in other parts of the world. We are talking about £1.3 trillion—there are so many zeroes on the end of that number—and we must protect that business. The Bill also protects our national interests such as the NHS and our broadcasters. It transitions our existing trade deals with those 60-odd countries into British law from the current EU relationship. I do not know how many Members have read CETA, but it is 1,568 pages long and I have read a lot of it. There will need to be changes when it comes into British law, which is why the Minister needs powers to make technical changes. The Bill allows us to collect and share vital information on our existing and potential future trade flows—this is information currently shared under EU premises. It will allow us to share and understand that information domestically.
Free trade is not a free-for-all; we have global rules that protect us. It is important that when those rules are broken, we can take remedies, which is why the Bill also establishes the new Trade Remedies Authority. It is incredibly important that it is up and running, and staffed with strength, well in advance of our new era. That is why we must make sure in Committee that its powers are made very clear, as I mentioned last night.
The Bill does not set a long-term trade policy. It is important that it does not do so today, because that needs to be properly consulted on with not just Members of this House, but the many stakeholders who are involved. There has been a lot of scaremongering about what free trade could involve. Free trade does not mean lowering our standards. It does not mean throwing out our environmental standards, our consumer protections, our environment law or our long history on human rights. All that can be preserved and should continue to be preserved in the new era, but it is right that the Government take time to consult stakeholders across the country on the priority of our new law.
The Bill also does not say, as Opposition Members were suggesting last night, that we should stay in the customs union. There seems to be some confusion about the benefits of a union with the customs union, and I would like to remind the shadow Minister about the deficiencies of the Turkish solution, for example: Turkey opens up its market to any trade that the EU signs itself up to, but Turkey cannot get access to the Canadian market in return, for example. The UK needs a better, more bespoke and more workable and practical relationship with the EU, as well as the rest of the world. I hope that we can start to work together this year to deliver that.
Exiting the European Union and Global Trade
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Mr Vaizey
Will the Minister assure us that companies that want to invest in the UK will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) says, be able to continue recruiting people with the right skills both from the European Union and from across the world? One of the benefits of the single market is that for a person recruited from the European Union, having their partner and family members able to come here to work is a huge incentive.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I fully respect that we will be leaving the single market and will need a new deal. At the moment, a company selling, say, a cancer scanner to a Spanish hospital needs to have a maintenance service contract. It can send an engineer to service the scanner under a posting of workers arrangement, and there is mutual recognition of the engineer’s professional qualifications. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in our new trade agreement, it is important to be able to easily trade not only goods but services, with the ability to send workers flexibly from one jurisdiction to another?
Mr Vaizey
My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. She was an incredibly effective MEP and she certainly would have turned up to Juncker’s speech in the European Parliament; she worked tirelessly and I very much hope the Government will listen to her as we negotiate Brexit, because she has experience that is unparalleled in this House. The point she makes is pertinent to my constituency, where MRI scanners are made at Oxford Instruments.
I was going to talk about Euratom, but I have run out of time—luckily we have a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) will be speaking in that debate, but we all want to make our points on Euratom then.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I begin, of course, by congratulating the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Dockerill) on her maiden speech. She demonstrated how attached she feels to her constituency, and that really is the best start for being an effective Member of Parliament. It also shows what progress we are making when a Member can stand up and say that they are the second woman Member in their constituency.
This is the first time I have spoken since the general election and, of course, I want to begin by thanking my constituents for taking part in the election—especially those who voted Labour. The majority of my constituents voted to leave the European Union in the referendum last year, and when I discuss that with them they tell me that they want a Brexit that controls immigration but boosts exports and secures long-term jobs, particularly in manufacturing. What they like about the European Union is the social chapter, the common market—what we call the customs union—the environmental protections, co-operation on research and development, and the European arrest warrant.
Their views on migration mean that I have to say that I think that it is inevitable that as part of leaving the European Union, we will have to leave the single market, but I think the issues on the customs union are rather different. I was pleased by the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and the remarks made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) about keeping the customs union on the table. I do not know why the Chancellor was suggesting the other day that there are legal difficulties with that; Turkey belongs to the customs union and not the European Union and that was the position that this country was in between 1975 and 1992. It offers not just tariff-free trade but barrier-free trade.
When I went to talk to the North East England chamber of commerce, its members were particularly worried about how firms would handle the rules of origin if we were to leave the customs union. It is not enough for HMRC to have a computer system. That does not deal with the bureaucracy, because each individual firm has to apply to get the status they need to use the system. That is immensely bureaucratic and time-consuming, and the OECD has found that that increases costs by about 25%.
Another very important thing is what we will do about all the European agencies—the Government have not been clear about that at all. In my constituency there is a Glaxo plant that employs 1,000 people and produces half a million packs of drugs a day. I have been working with Glaxo, both locally and nationally, on what kind of Brexit deal would be good for the pharmaceutical industry. It wants a level playing field with the other drugs manufacturers across Europe, and that means staying inside the European Medicines Agency. The agency has been located in London because Britain is one of the best producers of pharmaceuticals, and we helped to draft almost all the rules that the agency applies. Glaxo has sent me its paper on priorities for the UK’s exit, in which it said:
“Any UK withdrawal from the EU that ends or damages the UK’s ability to benefit from the EU framework”—
the medicines agency framework—
“could significantly impact patients, and hinder GSK’s operations in the UK and across the EU. Any future regulatory processes…must avoid introducing delays, significant new costs or unpredictable outcomes.
It is critical that an agreement is reached early in negotiations between the UK and EU that the European regulatory framework will continue to apply to medicines, vaccines, medical devices and cosmetics that are already authorised or undergoing clinical trials, to ensure that supply or development of these products is maintained without disruption.”
Vicky Ford
I am interested in what the hon. Lady says about medicines and vaccines. Yes, the mutual recognition principle is extremely helpful in allowing British companies to work with others across Europe and a single market for medicines, but I understand there are issues that make it more difficult for those same pharmaceutical developers to share data with, say, American counterparts. Under the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, which as I have said before in the House is not perfect for the UK, there are potential benefits to mutual recognition not only with Europe but with other countries. Does she not agree that we want both types of agreement if possible?
Helen Goodman
What we really want is minimal regulatory costs on businesses. That means that we should stay in the European Medicines Agency. If we leave and have to set up our own, we will be imposing a third regulatory system on them, and as I am sure the hon. Lady knows, that would be immensely expensive. We have a lot of exports and jobs in the sector. I tabled a lot of parliamentary questions to the Department before the general election and got content-free answers. I now want Ministers to be clear about what they will do not just about the European Medicines Agency but about the 40 other agencies we belong to, ranging from aviation safety to plant health, all of which facilitate trade on a level playing field for British businesses.
The second group of people I am concerned about, as I pointed out in my intervention, are hill farmers—I have 400 hill farmers. After Brexit, it seems that three things will matter for them: the new trade rules; the support systems; and the regulations on food safety and the environment. Again, we have had no clarity from Ministers. If they agree to the import of meat with lower animal welfare and consumer safety standards and lower prices, they could decimate British agriculture, which would be a disaster for farmers and a disaster for the environment.