European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-30
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am moving this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, who could not be here tonight, but the amendment is also in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria It is slightly different from some of the previous ones we have debated today. It suggests that, if no agreement is reached with the European Union on frontier controls and all the other things in the amendment, the Government’s negotiating objectives should be on the basis that the UK will seek to remain fully in the single market, which I and many other noble Lords see as an alternative to the hard or cliff-edge Brexit, or whatever we like to call it. The first Division that we won a few days ago on Report was on the customs union. That was a good start, but I invite the House to go a little further. Although the customs union is good, quite a lot of problems would still be attached to it, particularly on the jobs and frontier control issues On the economy, we read every day of fears of job losses, the economy going down, and of worries from many companies, large and small, about the effect of Brexit. I suppose that the motor car manufacturers are some of the most frightened. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders believes that that there will be a £4.5 billion additional cost in tariffs, let alone all the other bureaucracy I shall come on to, and the RICS reckons that there will be the loss of 200,000 construction jobs if we are not in the single market Many noble Lords will have read the recent leaked government analysis of the drop in the economy if we go for a hard Brexit—in the north-east a 16% drop, and in the West Midlands a 13% drop—whereas in the UK overall there would be a 1.5% drop if we remained in the single market and an 8% drop if we ended up on WTO terms. It is worth my saying before the Minister does that the Government do not recognise these figures, but we all get used to the Government not recognising the figures they do not like. We will see what happens On the issue of frontier controls, 38 cross-border agencies are involved. With some of them the checks have to be done at frontiers—I include the Northern Ireland-Republic land frontiers in these remarks—and the paperwork, even with a customs union, can be pretty horrendous. We could spend hours debating customs, food standards, food legislation, and the need for pallets to be disinfected when they come into the European Union. Seed potatoes cannot be taken from inside to outside, so I do not know what will happen if a farm straddles the border in Ireland and the seed potatoes in one half cannot be taken into the other half, which sounds interesting. Other issues, among many, include animal and plant health, rabies, foot and mouth and pharmaceuticals Just to give one example, there is a transporter that moves goods for Morrisons from here to Gibraltar. Every lorry has to be checked for the point of origin of the goods, each having its own document, before the Spanish authorities will permit the vehicle to leave the UK on its route to Gibraltar. Heaven only knows how that will improve when we have left.