Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Whitty for introducing today’s debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and his committee for their choice of subject and for what I consider is the high quality of the report. I am sorry about the attacks made on it; I think that most were a cover for not liking its conclusions, although I exempt the noble Lord, Lord Bew, from that. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Jay, for getting this debate today; it is particularly timely as it is of course on the very eve of the first anniversary of the Lancaster House speech when, regrettably, the Prime Minister gave legs to this rather vacuous "No deal is better than a bad deal" nonsense. But I also hope that this debate is in time to influence the Government’s thinking, particularly along the lines of the report’s advice, which is, basically, "Get real". Both the report and the debate have laid bare the absence of any rationale for suggesting no deal and, of course, its failure to scare the other side to offer us lots of goodies, given that they view it as mere bluster. I will emphasise four points First, there is the near unanimity of advice that no deal has no merit. As paragraph 18 notes: "Very few witnesses identified any positives arising as a result of ‘no deal’", while a former Chancellor of the Exchequer struggled to find any country of any significance that traded purely on WTO terms—the no-deal option—which the CBI judged would mean that 90% of our manufacturing exports by value would face tariffs. Yet as my noble friend Lord Whitty has warned, the very repetition of the no-deal rhetoric risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, rather oddly, as has been mentioned, even as Ministers insist it is an option and continue to prepare for it, as they say, "any responsible government would do", they are then utterly surprised when the EU 27 do just that, with David Davis even having the effrontery in a letter to the Prime Minister to attack their "damaging" no-deal planning, even, we understand, consulting lawyers—presumably at taxpayers’ expense—over the EU’s preparations for no deal. It is unclear why David Davis should spend £3 billion preparing for no deal but get so het up when Michel Barnier does exactly the same. As the Commission spokesman responded: "We are surprised that the UK is surprised that we are preparing for a scenario announced by the UK government itself" So of course the Commission should prepare. As it makes clear, if no deal is agreed by this October, the status quo would come to an abrupt halt next March. However, as the noble Lords, Lord Gadhia and Lord Taylor of Warwick, said, this is not a game show. Should we leave the stage, there would be dire consequences for our country Secondly, it is difficult to believe that the Government really believe that no deal could ever be satisfactory, given that it would mean: no security for United Kingdom citizens living in the EU; probably a hard border in Ireland; immediate imposition of tariffs, customs checks and possibly travel visas; no flights to continental Europe; nuclear materials stacked at the border; no judicial co-operation or European arrest warrants, as the noble Lord, Lord Blair, mentioned; no new trade agreement with any other country, because they would not be in place by then, and the loss of all 57 existing trading relations with third countries; 17-mile tailbacks at Dover, without having even an IT system in place; a devastating impact on our farming and food safety, and food prices possibly going up by 20%; a rift in the all-Ireland energy electricity market, posing threats to Northern Ireland’s lights; the financial sector in jeopardy, particularly on investment contracts, as we have heard; and, according to the impact assessment commissioned by the Mayor of London, which was rather more thorough than that done by Her Majesty’s Government, some half a million jobs under threat, and effectively a "lost decade" of lower employment and economic growth, with perhaps £50 billion of investment lost. And of course it would mean no transition agreement, despite the proposal for an implementation period by the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Brexit in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, although of course that is not possible without a deal Thirdly, the Whitehall farce returned last week as the anticipated new "no-deal Brexit Minister" failed to appear and was replaced by a new Minister who supports no deal. Indeed, she does not even want a transition, despite the fervent pleas from industry. So "No, No, Nanette" becomes "Yes, no; well, maybe. We’ll tell the EU 27 that we want a deal but we’ll appoint a Minister who doesn’t". If it were not so serious, it would actually be quite funny Fourthly, and crucially for this House as we prepare for the withdrawal Bill—it will soon end its passage through the other House—any decision to slam the door behind us, after 46 years, with no agreement on our temporary or future relationship is a big national decision. It is not a decision to be taken solely by Ministers; it is one to be taken by Parliament on behalf of the nation. Therefore, we will seek to amend the withdrawal Bill to ensure that any decision to have no deal resides with Parliament and not with Downing Street As the report says, failure to reach agreement is not a continuation of the status quo. No deal would mean the abrupt cessation of nearly half a century of economic, political and legal partnership. The elegant wording of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, repeated today by my noble friend Lord Whitty, and by the noble Lords, Lord Gadhia and Lord Wallace, concludes: "It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom".