United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kenneth Clarke (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, I find it difficult to express how strongly I am amazed and deeply dismayed that any British Government of any complexion should produce before Parliament a Bill which contains the provisions of Part 5 of this Bill. I never expected in my parliamentary career, which has not been a short one, to find myself reading a Bill of this kind presented for parliamentary approval. It has already been said, and will be said many times in this debate, that it appears to give the Government unfettered power to break, in any way they find necessary, particular provisions of a treaty upon which the ink is barely dry. I will not attempt—I do not have the time—to compete with the undoubted eloquence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and my noble friend Lord Howard, who have expressed the shock which everybody who has any regard for the rule of law in this country undoubtedly feels I move on to my more familiar field, though I am a long practiced and experienced lawyer, and shall talk about the politics which underlines this, which I also find quite bizarre and completely inept. The origins of the need for this Bill are quite extraordinary. It all arises from the decision taken shortly after the referendum that Brexit would involve leaving the single market and the customs union. I strongly disagreed with that, and think that we could have left the European Union and remained. I actually moved a Motion in the House of Commons and got within six votes of a majority for staying in the customs union, which, unfortunately, is nearer than the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, got to achieving anything. But that is not the issue today. I accept that we are committed to leaving the single market and the customs union, and I accept the judgment of Parliament and the population, but it does give rise to all the problems that the Government do not know how to solve Once you leave the customs union and the single market, you need a customs frontier between your own internal market and the rest. That is wholly in accordance with all the ordinary practices of international trade in modern times, WTO rules and all. Everybody knows that at Dover this could create a very considerable problem, and we are preparing to recruit the people, get the lorry parks, handle the traffic, and get people to prepare for the paperwork that is involved. The problem of course arose in Ireland, which no one seemed to have thought about very clearly, until they realised that to do the same in Ireland would totally undermine that extremely important agreement for the security of the United Kingdom and the Republic, the Anglo-Irish agreement. The solution was determined that Ulster should stay in the customs union and single market, and Great Britain should leave, which means that we have a customs frontier down the Irish Sea This was not a sudden or ill-considered thought; it was argued about vigorously. The Democratic Unionist Party, otherwise firm Brexiteers, opposed the whole agreement on that basis but the fact remains that we have committed ourselves to having a frontier. The proper thing to do now is not to go back on our word with no solution—it is quite unclear what the Government really propose by way of essential customs controls that are still compatible with the agreement—but to minimise the necessary delays, as I hope we are doing in the negotiations with the EU. If we insist on changing standards, we should have equivalence of standards and arbitration procedures to settle disputes, and we should make sure that there are as few disruptions to trade, delays to the border and costs as possible. As I said, it is not quite clear what would happen if you just left a hole in the controls between Ireland and GB.