UK-EU Customs Union

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, for that absolutely excellent speech, revealing her rich experience in many areas across both the European Union and localities in the UK. She has already made one significant mark on our work: I was not aware that you could have two locations in your title. I am sure there are precedents for it, but the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, has certainly established that. I am pretty sure that, if the citizens of Jewellery in Birmingham and Southall in Ealing get to read that speech, they will be very proud of their girl for what she is achieving on their and other people’s behalf in this country.

We are proud of her on these Benches, too. She is going to bring a fresh perspective on a number of things, including housing and inequality, and perhaps on the EU as well. She was not exactly on any party line with her remarks at the end, but her basic pro-Europeanism shone through very strongly. We look forward to further speeches to come, which again will make us think and take us forward. We have a new colleague who will be a big hitter in this Chamber. While I am on my feet, I wish the other noble Lords who will be delivering their maiden speeches today all the very best for the future. If they do as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, they will be doing very well.

I follow the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in a number of ways—not all ways—and I appreciated his opening speech very much. It set the scene for this debate very well and the scene for the country more generally. I, too, like him, remember vividly in the EU referendum that not everyone on the leave campaign thought that leaving the EU necessarily meant leaving the customs union and the single market. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, was among those who initially thought that. Reference has been made to Boris Johnson’s famous remarks that we could have our cake and eat it, keep the benefits and still leave—one of the biggest whoppers told in that very bitter campaign.

Now, we are faced with reality, and a hard reality it is, too, as the evidence of the costs of leaving the EU continues to pile up. I am not going to repeat all the statistics that were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, other than to say that goods exports are still languishing below pre-2019 levels. I am particularly concerned about small firms, bewildered still by increased paperwork and customs-related red tape.

Nor are non-EU countries filling the gaps. The new trade deals have so far been disappointing. The one with India is unfortunately not yet in force. Others, such as the one with Japan, replicate the EU arrangements; Canada is more interested in a deal with the EU than with us; and the deal with Australia is very good for Australia, but reflects a desperation on our part to get some agreements over the line. As for a deal with the US, as Mark Carney said at Davos recently:

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition”.


I acknowledge warmly that the US has helped rescue us and other Europeans in the past, but can we still rely on it, given the capricious behaviour of the present White House Administration? Well, nobody is too clear about that.

So it seems to me that this can be used in a number of ways, with a number of opportunities as well as a number of threats. It can be used to open a new chapter with the EU, as we huddle together with our neighbours and allies and try to make common cause on a wider range of issues. Defence is an obvious priority area at the moment, but trade should also be another. Prime Minister Carney’s call for medium-sized powers to come together should be heeded and used by the UK as a way to approach our problems in a new way. We need that new way and we need it quickly: we need this reset of key relationships, as the Government are at last exploring.

As the excellent Library briefing for this debate reminds us, the Office for Budget Responsibility reckons that UK imports and exports are both 15% lower than if the UK had remained in the EU. That is a heavy blow to our growth prospects.

I live in hope that people on the other side of this House will begin to acknowledge that the history of our brief time outside the EU has not been good; it has been bad. There have been failures all around, and it was precipitated by us leaving the EU. I look forward, not backward. I do not want to replay old arguments, but I hope that the reset will be bold and wide-ranging. It should challenge those in the Conservative Party—and, I guess, the Reform party too—to recognise the reality that we need a new deal with the EU and perhaps follow up the Carney speech.

There are four major claimed benefits of Brexit, as set out recently by the Conservative Party leader, particularly the freedom to negotiate our own trade deals.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

Order. We have quite a tight time limit, and everybody wants to hear from my noble friend and for her to be able to respond, so if my noble friend could finish—

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

I finish with an appeal to the other side to open their minds and maybe open their hearts a little bit, recognise the situation we are now in, not the situation we were in, and take the country forward on that basis.