Global Britain — House of Lords, 2020-02-03
Topic: Foreign Trade
Richard Newby (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. I am of course delighted that she has, because in doing so she has shown herself willing to be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny where the Prime Minister has not, despite the fact that the meat of this Statement is his Written Statement to Parliament today on the UK’s approach to the Brexit negotiations. I hope that this will set a precedent, and one which she will commend to her leader in another place It is very instructive to compare the Prime Minister’s Statement to that issued by the EU, also today, on its approach to the negotiations. The EU document runs to some 30 pages; the Prime Minister’s to one and a half, albeit in small type. It is still pretty thin. In a number of respects, the two sets of proposals are complementary, and the tone is certainly conciliatory, which is to be welcomed. The Government are now perfectly explicit that they want a Canada-type trade agreement. In terms of the degree of closeness to the EU, that is the height of their ambitions and they accept that if they fail to get such a deal, they will revert to normal third-country arrangements. The latter option would clearly be extremely damaging, as this House has discussed many times, but so in my view would be a Canada-type agreement Such an agreement will require customs checks and controls, sanitary and phytosanitary controls, and much form-filling. It will not be the frictionless trade of which Mrs May was such a proponent; nor "unfettered" trade, which was the terminology of the Conservative election manifesto. For the sake of clarity, can the Leader of the House confirm that a Canada-type agreement would inevitably lead to such controls? In respect of trade between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, can she confirm that the permanent customs border will now be down the middle of the Irish Sea rather than on the UK-Irish land border? Can she also explain how a Canada-type deal would cover agricultural products given that the real Canada agreement involves tariffs and quotas on agricultural products such as poultry, eggs, beef, pork and wheat? What discussions have taken place between the Government and the NFU to ascertain how British farm production would be affected by the imposition of such Canada-type tariffs and quotas One area where there is clearly no current agreement between the UK and EU position is fishing. The EU document talks of aiming "to avoid economic dislocation for Union fishermen" and to "build on existing reciprocal access conditions, quota shares and the traditional activity of the Union fleet" How do the Government square this with their aim of extending the scope of exclusive UK fishery rights? Can the Leader confirm that, when it comes to services, the Government stand by their assessment of two years ago that a Canada-style agreement would involve more than 550 restrictions in services trade? On security, the EU document discusses co-operation between law enforcement and judicial authorities, which will be in line with arrangements for co-operation with third countries. This is a million miles short of the co-operation which now protects the UK through the Prüm and European arrest warrant systems. How do the Government, whose own document talks only about putting in place a "pragmatic agreement", envisage replicating the benefits for the security of our citizens which the present arrangements provide Moving on to the section in the Statement headed "Global Britain", I am afraid that we now enter a zone of almost entirely windy rhetoric, culminating in the hyperbolic statement that Global Britain will be "an even stronger force for good in the world." To exemplify this new reality, the Statement refers to the COP 26 climate change summit that is to take place in Glasgow—our chairing of which, of course, has nothing to do with EU membership and long predates Brexit. The Government say that their approach to COP 26 is to lead by example, but the truth is that the only example they seem to be setting is of chaos and confusion. Following the sacking of Claire Perry O’Neill, can the Leader say who will now be in charge of preparing for this summit, when she expects the Cabinet sub-committee set up to manage it to have its first ever meeting, and when the Government will begin to publish their plans for the summit? The only thing that we know about it is that the costs have gone up from £250 million to £450 million, but we are no closer to knowing what the Government plan the summit to achieve For all the talk of global Britain, most of the rest of the globe thinks that, in pursuing Brexit, we have taken leave of our senses. Nothing in this Statement is likely to persuade them that they are wrong.