Customs and Borders — House of Commons, 2018-04-26
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Mr Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to be the first person in this place to congratulate Ruth Davidson, who has just announced her pregnancy. I send huge congratulations from those of us on the Scottish National party Benches I feel very sorry for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, because when we went through the initial stages of consideration of the customs Bill—the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill—his Government had not announced that they were against being in a customs union. In fact, a couple of days after we finished the Bill’s consideration in Committee, the Government randomly—on a Saturday morning—announced that they were not going to pursue a customs union. The Committee stage would have been an awful lot easier had we been aware of the Government’s position It was almost as if the Government took that position without really thinking it through. They said, "Of course we are not going to be in a customs union." Then everyone said, "What about Ireland?", and the Government said, "Oh, right. We’d better do something about that." Then we said, "What about rules of origin checks?", and the Government said, "Oh, yes." It was almost as if they were being held to account by some Brexiteer Back Benchers and, without thinking, announced this crazy policy that they now cannot row back from A customs union means a shared external tariff. It generally means that countries lower the tariff barriers between them. It is not anything else. It is not anything that anyone else says it is. Half our trade in goods is with the EU, and the other half is with the rest of the world I want to debunk some of the myths that have been put out in recent days. Every single lorry is stopped at the Norway-Sweden border—not every one is checked, but every one is stopped. We will lose free trade agreements. The Government say, "All these countries have decided that we will continue to be party to the free trade agreements," but I am not sure that that is the case. We do not have it in writing from anyone. The Government have talked about how great it is that our trade with South Korea has increased, but that is since the EU signed a free trade agreement with South Korea—that is the only reason why it has happened. Then there is the question of scrutiny. I am sure that some of the Brexiteers do not understand what they have signed up to. The Trade Bill does not give us any more scrutiny; in fact, it gives us less scrutiny. The Commission needs authority from the European Council, and then it needs consent from the European Parliament, but we will not have those mechanisms. The Government will be able to do what they like because there is no mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny under the Bill The Brexiteers talk about trade with Africa. I look forward to their tabling amendments to the customs Bill to increase the number of "least developed countries" from 49, to increase the number of "generalised scheme of preferences" countries from 19, and to increase the number of GSP+ countries from nine. They do not know what will actually happen, and they need to table amendments if they want to fulfil their bright idea of the future.