Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Chris Leslie

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

Exactly. Presumably the Government think they can negotiate on that between the UK and the EU bilaterally, but actually that is not the way that this works. Under the WTO arrangements, we have to make sure we have the same application of rules as we would in other arrangements around the world.

A customs union is not just preferable; it is the only realistic option. The idea that the European Union is going to say, “Fine, we’re happy with you splitting the four freedoms” is for the birds. That is not going to happen, especially as populism is running riot worldwide. The EU feels very firmly that it wants to defend the international rules-based system. It feels very firmly that the four freedoms of the single market and the customs union are integral to it. The idea that Switzerland provides an example, when it has endured decades of constant treaty negotiations year after year after year—that is not a model Britain should seek to parallel.

The idea that we should simply hope that by focusing on the withdrawal agreement we can secure our future is also a fallacy. The notion that we will be able just to staple on to the back of this arrangement, on a few sides of A4, political statements on our future relationship with the EU is deeply dangerous. We have to make sure that we settle these issues—I know the former Brexit Secretary agrees on this particular point. The idea that what is said on one side of exit day will necessarily be enforced on the other side of exit day is just not true. There is no legal enforceability to any warm words about our future relationship. These issues have to be set out at this particular stage.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is time we listen to the people who run businesses, rather than sit in our comfortable seats telling people what to do?

[Mr Leslie]

Yes, and the problem we have had is that ideology and populism have been running this country for the last few years. We need to stop that and assert common-sense economic reality much more. As the right hon. Member for Broxtowe was saying in her speech, this transcends the political parties. This is not a time to be playing party political games of advantage. Our country is absolutely at stake here.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Chris Leslie

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

We will have to see what happens there. I think that about 2.5 million lorries a year go through the port of Dover; just think about the volume of traffic we are talking about.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The Brexit Select Committee actually visited Dover and we then met a representative of the port of Calais. Although this country is prepared to build a lorry park, the French side will not build a lorry park because it has a migrant crisis. The port of Calais will just close under these circumstances, so where will we export to and import from?

[Mr Leslie]

I know that the Minister will answer all these questions as soon as he sums up this debate. He has the answers in his pack and he is not one to shilly-shally; he will give us specific and detailed responses to these questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman will know that there are concerns. He said Norway was a “vassal state”—I think that was his phrase. I do not think the Norwegians would see it that way, but they have had to simply take instructions, in many ways, in terms of the European Union arrangements on a lot of these questions. With many of our products, particularly in the manufacturing sector, the customs union has given us great opportunity to thrive, and we have done particularly well in recent years on the back of that.

[Wera Hobhouse]

On that point, the Norwegian border is very interesting. Norway is in Schengen, so it does border checks on goods, but it does not need to do border checks on people. The main problem, of course, is that we are not in either. We need, at some point, to address the issue of how we check that lorries are not bringing into this country people we do not want to be here. I know that taking back control of our borders is a very important point, but there will be important discussions to be had about how we make that possible. Container ports will be okay, because we can seal the loads, but it will be a lot more difficult with lorries, because they take separate loads from separate consignments, and they need to be opened several times. So the issue of people smuggling is becoming quite potent.

[Mr Leslie]

The hon. Lady deals with the point incredibly well.

If we end frictionless trade or introduce barriers, with potentially the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, very significant problems will arise. The Government are either deluding themselves by saying, “There’s some miraculous blue-skies technological solution to all these things”, or deluding others because of the fudging and obfuscation that is going on, when, in moving from the phase 1 to the phase 2 process, they put in a form of words that seems to be interpreted in almost as many different ways as there are people reading them. They have kicked the issue into the long grass for now, but we are not going to be able to get to a decent deal without this unravelling.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Chris Leslie

Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

I hear the hon. Lady’s case that somehow the charter is not necessary, which is very much the case that Ministers have made in the past, but she has conceded that there are differences that the charter can apply. She characterises those differences as very small, but what she perceives as small or minuscule rights are not necessarily small or minuscule rights to our constituents, to members of the public or to the most vulnerable in society, who may depend on the very rights provided by the charter in crucial circumstances.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman find it odd that we are transposing all EU law into our own law while taking away the thing that underpins all EU law? We are taking away the fundamentals and foundations of the body of EU law. Is that not an odd way of going about things?

[Mr Leslie]

I agree. I find it odd that Ministers are saying that, somehow, the charter does not matter but are then saying that we must delete the charter in the Bill. They would almost die in a ditch to defend clause 5(4), which simply says:

“The Charter of Fundamental Rights is not part of domestic law on or after exit day.”

If the charter is so benign and so irrelevant, why not have the report? It may be tedious to some, but the report is necessary to explain whether those rights do or do not offer protections. If the charter is so ineffectual, and if this is supposed to be a copy-and-paste exercise to transpose EU law, I do not see the argument for deleting the charter.