Leaving the EU: Customs

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and then to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), and then I will make progress.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

If the right hon. Gentleman is such a believer in Cabinet collective responsibility, what does he make of the conduct of the Foreign Secretary, who continually and consistently undermines the Prime Minister and her position? What does he think will do more damage to our negotiating position: publishing some documents or the conduct of an incompetent Foreign Secretary?

[Mr Lidington]

I will explain later why I believe the implications of the Opposition motion would be extremely damaging for the quality of Government decisions under Governments of any party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Surely the key question that we should be asking ourselves is whether, if Parliament were to pass this motion and the information were to be released, it would undermine our negotiating position. I would argue that that is most certainly the case. Of course it is the aim and objective of those who support the remain cause that the EU will give us the worst possible terms and that, as a result, we will go on to reject an agreement, but there are also practical reasons, and political judgments have to be made.

What do we know already? We know that the Government are intent on delivering the Brexit that was determined by the referendum. We know that they will bring back control of our money, borders and laws to this House, rather than their being based in Brussels. In doing that, they intend to ensure that trade between ourselves and the EU is as frictionless as possible, that we avoid a hard border in Ireland, and that we establish an independent trade policy.

What do we know about the facts and figures? We know that in 2016 we had a trade deficit with the EU of £71 billion. In that same year, the UK had a trade surplus with the rest of the world of £34 billion. The European Commission has predicted that 90% of world economic growth over the next 10 to 15 years will come from outside the European Union, so surely our focus should be on countries outside the EU.

[Wes Streeting]

This is just total fantasy stuff. The idea that we do not presently trade with the rest of the world is just laughable. Through the European Union, we have trade agreements with the rest of the world, and the reality is that leaving the customs union and the single market will diminish our ability to carry out such trade. As a London MP, I find this unbelievable. My city will be all right post-Brexit—it will not be easy, but it will be all right. However, communities such as the hon. Gentleman’s—big fishing communities—are going to be absolutely hammered. What on earth is he doing by justifying the absurdity of the Government’s policy?

[Martin Vickers]

For the hon. Gentleman even to suggest that the fishing industry has in some way benefited from our membership of the European Union is simply laughable. I would gladly invite him to my constituency so that he can meet the people who were involved in the fishing industry. Very few of them are involved in it now because of the European Union.

To go back to the facts and figures that I quoted, it is noteworthy that only this week Liam Halligan asked in The Sunday Telegraph why, if the customs union is so vital to Britain, we are running a massive trade deficit inside it but a large surplus with nations outside it. We need to ensure that we are able to set our own trade policies so that we can trade freely with the expanding economies in the world, and the reality is that those economies are not in the European Union. We have to widen our horizons. The success of Britain has always been our free trade with the world as a whole.