European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Lilley and Kelvin Hopkins

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lilley]

The 7% is after taking account of everything we get back. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know, he should look up table 4.27 on page 159 of the Office for Budget Responsibility report, which spells out how much we will get back net when we leave, which is £13 billion—£250 million a week.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if a 4% tariff is imposed, it is possible that the pound will depreciate by the same amount, because we have our own currency?

[Mr Lilley]

It is already 15% more competitive than it was a year ago, which dwarfs the average of 4%. We can, of course, give processing relief—that is, remit tariffs—on components that are part of processing and manufacturing chains and that will be re-exported. We will get £12.3 billion of revenues, if we apply the common external tariff to imports from the EU, but our exporters will pay some £6.5 billion of tariffs on their exports to the EU, so we would have ample money to compensate any exporters who were not sufficiently advantaged by a 15% devaluation, and still have billions of pounds to reduce general taxation. We can also, of course, negotiate free trade agreements with the rest of the world and slash unilaterally the tariffs that we currently charge on food, clothing and other things that we do not produce but that mean that our consumers have to pay higher prices to subsidise inefficient producers elsewhere in the EU, instead of importing from, say, the less-developed countries from which we should naturally be importing.

There are many other advantages, but as you have urged brevity, Ms Engel, I will not tell the Committee what they are but hold them back for a future occasion.

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Debate between Lord Lilley and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing the debate and on raising some very important points that this House should consider seriously.

As the last Member in this House, I think, who was involved in negotiating a successful international trade round—the Uruguay round, when I was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—I am extremely in favour of free trade. I believe there is a strong case for unilateral free trade, although that is not easy to sell to the electorate. A priori, therefore, I approach the TTIP agreement from a position of strong support. I am very suspicious of critics of TTIP who are often simply against trade, simply against markets, simply against choice, simply against business and simply against America.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I will not, because the hon. Gentleman may find in a minute that I have answered his question.

I am especially hostile to all those people who press the button on 38 Degrees campaigns that relate to anything against trade and business. I was rather surprised, therefore, to find myself sympathising with four people who appeared in my surgery and announced, to a groan from me, that they were members of 38 Degrees and had concerns about TTIP. They actually raised some very important points that resonated with me from my experience of past negotiations.

I am, of course, totally in favour of removing tariffs, but that is a relatively minor aspect of what TTIP is about. Over the years, we have been hugely successful in removing tariffs and straightforward barriers to trade. They averaged 40% back when the general agreement on tariffs and trade was set up. They were still around 15% when I was negotiating. The tariffs now between the United States and Europe average less than 2%. Half of all goods traded between the two continents are entirely tariff-free. That means, of course, that those that are subject to tariffs can be higher. On clothing, the tariffs are up to 30% and on cars the US levies a tariff of 2.5%. The EU, under the influence no doubt of German car manufacturers, levies a tariff of 10% on imports of cars from America.

Abolition of the remaining tariffs is worth having and would be the final success of GATT. TTIP goes far beyond that, however, and into harmonisation of regulation, rules on investment and rules on procurement. It is true that those sorts of rules can, either by intent or by accident, be used to inhibit trade. We should avoid using them in that way and we should seek, if we can, agreements to anti-discrimination rules so that neither in the business of investment nor procurement would either the United States or the EU be allowed to discriminate against firms from the other side.

My concern, and the concern of my constituents who declare themselves to be members of 38 Degrees, is that we may be creating a bureaucratic and legal process that may escape proper democratic control and may be subject to improper corporate influence. It is also symptomatic, although this is the least important point, of bureaucracies that perpetuate their existence even when the task they were established to do is largely complete. Literate Members of this House—we are all literate—will remember Dickens describing the circumlocution office, whose chief, Lord Tite Barnacle

“had died at his post with his drawn salary in his hand”

defending the existence of an organisation that no longer had any need to exist. Actually, because we have succeeded on tariff negotiations, we should be scaling down, not up, the international bureaucracy and not giving it far more undemocratic powers.

Even during the Uruguay round, I had my concerns. First, I was concerned about accountability to this House. The negotiations were so complex that it was difficult for the House to hold Ministers to account, and it was easy for Ministers to present a fait accompli to this House and say they had achieved the best compromise.