Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. and learned Friend raises an important point. The Government are indeed saying that we recognise the importance of ensuring that we have a smooth and frictionless trading situation between ourselves and the European Union once we have left it. Although we will have left the European Union, the Bill will facilitate our ability to have similarities in the way in which we trade. It will then be up to us to decide how we deviate from our starting point. We see the current position, under the European Union code—the customs code and the legislation in the European acquis—as a starting point to which we need to be reasonably aligned, even though we might diverge from it in the years ahead as a result of the negotiations, if that would be to the benefit of our country.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister has clarified that it is the Government’s intention to continue with the existing customs arrangements, and that the Bill will allow for the possibility of a continued customs union. Can he also confirm that the content of any new customs arrangements or customs union will be decided only through secondary legislation, rather than through primary legislation? Would it not be better to have a proper vote on the Floor of the House on primary legislation on whether we should stay in a customs union?