High Speed 2

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir William Cash]

I endorse what my hon. Friend has said about what is an extremely good idea and fits in with the opinion poll I mentioned. I am extremely glad that he voted against HS2, and sorry that I did not mention that earlier.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I have consistently voted against the project, for various reasons. It will affect investment in Coventry and at the same time be detrimental to the environment in Warwickshire. It has never been costed properly, and there has never been a proper impact study or a proper consultation that takes on board the community’s concerns. I agree with him that it should be scrapped.

[Sir William Cash]

I am extremely glad to hear that. I am sorry that I did not mention that in my opening remarks. Although he is an Opposition Member, I pay tribute to the wisdom of the hon. Gentleman.

I and the other people I mentioned are concerned about not only the concept, but the manner in which HS2 Ltd has dealt with the issues, as I have said in the petition that I and others deposited, and as I have said in previous debates. I also petitioned on the first and second Bills and raised all my constituents’ grievances, which are on the record for anyone to see. I do not need to go into those today, because I want to deal with the central principles.

I have also taken part in other debates with my right hon. and indefatigable Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. Our criticisms about the lack of consultation on HS2 are already on the record. Indeed, back in November 2015 the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found serious failings in HS2 Ltd’s engagement with a community in Staffordshire. The report stated that its actions fell so far below reasonable standards that they constituted maladministration. I had similar experiences to my right hon. Friend, and I understand that she will deal with that later in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is not able to be here today. He apologises for that—he had another engagement—but I want to cite his concerns, which relate to the disruption it will cause his constituents and the disconnected nature of the railway, which is a matter of grave concern. He makes the point that the railway does not connect with Heathrow, the continent via HS1, or even Birmingham New Street station. He says that if ever there were a model of how not to design an integrated railway, this is it.

Amidst our collective opposition, the white elephant is running amok in the Treasury and has already charged the British taxpayer more than £4 billion before construction has even started. My own position on the outrageous and accelerating costs of HS2 is that, although £4 billion is a colossal sum, there is no excuse for continuing to throw money down a black hole. The spending plans began to spiral after 2018: £3 billion in 2019; £4.2 billion in 2020; and £4.8 billion in 2021. So if we are going to stop it, now would be a good time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

That in itself is a complete tragedy. I totally endorse everything that my right hon. Friend said. The project has caused an enormous amount of anxiety and stress. I have friends and constituents who have literally been made physically ill as a result. Not only is it a catastrophic exercise in maladministration and failure to cost things properly, as I will mention, but it has caused anxiety and ultimately cannot be justified.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), who has led the way in consistently opposing HS2. I have constituents who cannot get compensation because they are just outside the area that qualifies for it. Surely that is a diabolical situation for people to find themselves in.

[Sir William Cash]

As I expected, the hon. Gentleman makes another extremely sound point. The reality is that people are affected by the indirect consequences. People talk about the number of jobs being created. I will come on to that as well, because many other projects could be put in place that would create an equal or greater number of jobs.

Summer Adjournment

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I want to take advantage of the debate to raise a few issues of concern to my constituents on which the Government could offer some assistance. On smart meters, the Government persist with the fiction that all is well, but we know that that simply is not true. There are problems with smart meters working in the north of the country, and installation figures are well behind schedule. There is no evidence to suggest that smart meters for gas supply are working on a commercial basis, and the Data Communications Company cannot or will not supply any evidence to show that its plan is on track. The promised dividend for consumers is plummeting, and the supply companies are blaming Government plans for increases in customers’ bills. When will the Minister responsible wake up to the fact that she needs to call a halt and conduct a serious review of this programme before she lands us all with a technological white elephant?

Tomorrow marks Louise Brown’s 40th birthday. That should certainly be a cause for celebration, but although we have heard some encouraging words from Health Ministers, we are yet to see any action on fair access to IVF. The plight of one in six couples with a recognised medical condition continues to be ignored by many of the faceless bureaucrats running our health service. The provision of IVF is patchy and reducing across the country. Clinical commissioning groups are allowed to introduce arbitrary criteria to ration the service. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines are simply ignored, and the two-year-old exercise in price standardisation shows no signs of progress. We are supposed to be celebrating 70 years of the national health service, as well as the 40th birthday of Louise Brown, so when will Ministers take the health of those with fertility problems seriously and offer a national level of service to treat their illness?

Once again, my constituency is suffering from the cat-and-mouse game of illegal Traveller encampments. We have been promised a consultation, but what we need is action. We need action to ensure that all local authorities provide some sites for legitimate, law-abiding Travellers; and action to make it easier to remove and ban those who persistently break the law and treat local communities with contempt. This issue affects constituencies up and down the land, so why do the Government persist in ignoring it?

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

We have similar problems in Coventry to those that my hon. Friend mentions, and what he says is right. Many years ago, we used to have proper sites where Travellers could go. They could arrange for their children to go to school and, more importantly, there were facilities on those sites to provide cleanliness. Does he agree that we should do something similar?

[Steve McCabe]

I agree, and I think that the Government could help by offering some action. The process requires local authorities to work, and the Government need to give a lead.

Last Friday, I saw two women in succession at my advice centre who were living in a local Travelodge with their children. They are homeless, and both the victims of domestic violence. What is happening in the 21st century in this country that means our response to women and children fleeing domestic violence is to condemn them to a life of hostels and Travelodges? These establishments have no cooking or laundry facilities; children are forced to live on McDonald’s and other takeaway meals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am grateful for that question. My hon. Friend is correct; we are maintaining our position as a global leader in offshore wind. But the combination of that with support for the battery storage sector is important, and we will be supporting it through the capacity market, which is helping to bring down costs.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

As the Minister will be aware, Jaguar Land Rover is in my constituency and it is developing batteries. What discussions has he had with Jaguar Land Rover about tax incentives in that area?

[John Glen]

I have not personally had any such discussions, but the Exchequer Secretary will have done. We are supporting that business, and many others up and down the country, through the comprehensive industrial strategy that we are rolling out in different sectors.

Transport Safety: Blind and Visually Impaired People

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to have secured this debate in the Chamber.

Three weeks ago, I met my constituents Margaret Ambaras and Laurel Holleran on a street in my constituency, together with Linda Oliver from Guide Dogs. All three of them are blind or have a serious visual impairment. Margaret and Laurel had asked me to go and experience the difficulties that blind people face when trying to navigate our streets—difficulties that could mostly be avoided. With some trepidation, but with support, I undertook a blindfolded walk along the street near where we met.

I am sure I am not the first MP to have undertaken this challenge—the Minister may well have undertaken it herself—but what I experienced really shocked me. The street where we met is in a residential area of Dunston without much street furniture and with reasonable pavements, but I found that navigating even for a short distance was fraught with difficulties. On this particular day, the bins were still on the street and most of the cars parked on the pavement were a real problem, particularly where it was not possible to pass the cars without going on to the road. Frankly, it was pretty hairy trying to get past the cars, and to work out where the kerb was and whether any traffic was coming. For part of the walk, I had glasses on that produced the effect of having tunnel vision, really restricting my ability to read the street and the pavement.

For me, the experience may have been scary, but it was at least temporary, and Margaret and Laurel were kind and took me to a busy residential area, rather than one where there are shops and other businesses, or lots of street furniture. As we talked after the event, they explained to me that, although they both now have guide dogs and have completed training through Guide Dogs, their independence is really constrained by pavement parking. Margaret told me that she still feels unable to go to her doctor’s surgery alone, because of cars parked along the narrow path she has to follow, meaning that she and her dog have to walk on a fairly narrow road, into the traffic.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

This is a timely debate, because constituents of mine, like those of a number of other MPs, are in a similar situation to that being described by my hon. Friend. They are asking for something to be done about parking on pavements, because it is a major problem for people with difficulties.

[Liz Twist]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. Many of us have been approached by constituents about the issue.

As I have said, Margaret faces difficulties going to the doctor. Laurel also told me that she is worried about going out and that she has had problems with the audio announcements on the bus, because they do not always work or are sometimes made in such a jaunty tone by a canny Geordie lass that she just cannot catch what is being said.

Customs and Borders

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I fully associate myself with the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) when she opened the debate and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), so I will not repeat their arguments now. I will, however, pick up on what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) said: we should be having a reasonable and evidence-based debate. Four of us who have spoken so far have the privilege of chairing Select Committees and seeing and hearing from witnesses directly about what is happening out there on the ground, and it is right that we have this opportunity to pass this information on to the Government and make sure that we have a serious discussion.

The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) spoke about what the public voted for. Had there been a very clear exposition of the either/or position, we could say that, but it was not clear at all, and now is the time for clarity. I want to focus on the practical issues facing this country if we leave the customs union. The Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, is a cross-party Committee made up of Members from four parties in this House—Members who voted both Brexit and remain and whose constituents voted similarly differently. Yet as a Committee we have produced a series of reports, two of which I want to talk about today, that highlight the practical challenges facing this country.

The first report was on the customs declaration service. Testing of that system, which is to replace the outdated customs handling of import and export freight—CHIEF—system to ensure we have a customs declaration system fit for purpose, is only now just under way. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates that the volume of customs declarations per year could rise by 200 million, from 55 million in 2015 to 255 million, and that the number of traders making declarations could increase from 141,000 to 273,000. We will need border checks for people and goods—we heard a lot from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this; we will see increased costs for businesses and Governments, as others have touched on; and we will see enormous delays at the border.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend’s Committee looked at the cost and number of officials we will need at the border after Brexit?

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In another report, published last December, we looked at Brexit and the border—I say “looked at”, but the situation is not static; we are working closely with sister Committees, particularly the Treasury Committee, with which we are doing some joint work on the cost of Brexit. We need to look at the wider cost and what Departments are having to do to implement these new systems and employ new staff.

HMRC has told us very candidly that it does not expect, as the right hon. Member for Loughborough highlighted, to have any additional border infrastructure in place by next March, yet other countries are planning for this already. In the Netherlands and Ireland, they are buying up land and planning to build facilities to do those necessary checks. Pieter Omtzigt, the Dutch Parliament’s Brexit rapporteur, has said that his country is

“preparing for the stated policy of the UK government”

and that it needs

“hundreds of new customs and agricultural inspectors”.

He says: “if we need” that,

“the British are going to need thousands”.

Already this week, we have seen Border Force advertising to recruit 550 staff—in addition to staff it has already had to recruit and will have to recruit again in the future.

Extraordinarily, a response to our work from the border planning group, which comprises a number of Departments, told our Committee there was no evidence to suggest that the risk profile of goods would change on day one. It went on:

“The Government is reviewing the specific areas where the risk posed by these imports could change, both immediately following EU exit and over time, and the measures that should be put in place to address this”—

should be put in place! We are one year away from Brexit. Even with a transition period, it will be enormously challenging—in fact impossible—to deliver the infrastructure needed to make sure that our country is safe.

We need full clarity on the costs. The Treasury Committee and the Public Accounts Committee are pressing the Treasury and other bits of Government about what the total cost will be. Let us be clear: there will be additional costs to the financial settlement, which will be only a small portion of the overall costs. That is the cost we will have to pay for the political exit, but there are the on-costs—the lost opportunity costs. We need to see the full bill and to have it analysed by the National Audit Office. We need to have that before any meaningful vote in the autumn. We are still woefully short on such information, but the right hon. Member for Loughborough and I are on the march, so I warn the Government: they had better be prepared.

As with the emperor’s new clothes, we need to call it out. Wishful thinking is not enough. It is not about ideology or romance, though many of us hold ideological positions. We need clarity. We need a decision so that business, and indeed the Government, can prepare. We need a customs union—we need the customs union. The alternative is chaos, cost, confusion and huge damage to the UK economy.

European Affairs

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. Those on the Front Benches will be noting that figures from Her Majesty’s Treasury have been disputed by their own Back Benchers.

It is important that we talk about European affairs. The right hon. Member for Wokingham advocated taking back control as though he on his own, isolated from all around him, can thrive and prosper without relationships and links with the outside world. It is tempting to envisage him locked in this room on his own, with the doors closed, just to see how he would thrive without the sort of relationships and sustenance that others provide.

So too, for the British economy, there is this fallacy about our independent sovereignty—that as a small island, we can cope on our own, without the rest of the world. These days, in the 21st century and in a modern economy, we rely on the rest of the world, and they also benefit from our engagement with them. We risk serious self-harm if we try to pretend that detaching ourselves from those alliances and relationships and going for the very first time towards less market access, as the Prime Minister advocates, is somehow going to make us better off. It will not; it will make us poorer.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is talking about a world that is long gone, in actual fact. We are a big wide world. I remember when the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister; his judgment was faulty then, and it is as faulty now. He goes on about taking powers back from Europe. The last two days have proved that we are not getting our powers back from Europe under his terms. What is happening now is that the Government are trying to tell us what to do without votes.

[Mr Leslie]

We have to recognise that in so many areas of policy—not just economic or trade policy—we benefit from these alliances and relationships. They do need to be worked on, and we need to somehow give and take a little bit. That is the nature of the global neighbourhood in which we live.

It would be remiss if I did not at this point voice my appreciation for the statements from France and Germany, which have shown their solidarity and fraternity with the United Kingdom in respect of the Russian chemical attack in Salisbury. We are talking about European affairs, and it is important that Europe stands together at an important moment such as this.

But Brexit is bound to dominate this sort of debate, and there are a number of aspects that I want to pick up on. The first is the question of frictionless borders and the trade arrangements that we absolutely have to maintain, not just for our own economic continuance but because of the Good Friday agreement and the need to avoid anything that could diminish the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.

The phase 1 agreement that the Government signed up to said that if they cannot come up with alternative arrangements, full alignment will be the way forward. My understanding is that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has this morning admitted that the notion of a technological option—the “smart borders” option—is just not viable. It is not going to work because it requires hard infrastructure at the borders. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are 275 crossing points on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The notion of having hard infrastructure—cameras, inspection posts and who knows what else—is clearly not compatible with the Good Friday agreement, so the Government have ruled that option out.

The only option that therefore exists is some sort of magical deal whereby the UK agrees to administer the external tariff arrangements for the rest of the European Union while simultaneously administering our own separate tariff arrangements for goods that are destined just within the UK. That does not happen anywhere else in the world. As well as being a complete bureaucratic nightmare, it would require reciprocity from our European partners with regard to our arrangements. They would have to administer a dual-tariff system for goods destined for the UK and those destined for Europe. It is just not going to happen. When the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) winds up the debate, he would do well to admit that the phase 1 agreement that he signed up to now means full regulatory alignment and, of course, that a customs union is the best and simplest way to achieve that.

The Government are trying their best and scrabbling around, asking the road haulage industry, trade bodies and other cargo and freight companies, “What are your volumes of traffic and what’s happening in trade?”, and making them sign non-disclosure agreements, to try to gag them if they dare to speak, even to their own trade body members, about their conversations with Ministers. That just shows how desperate the situation is.

Banking in North Ayrshire

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson]

I do. I will come later to the fact that no cognisance has been shown of the consequences for communities that the banks are supposed to serve.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her timely debate about the whole issue of banks, which affects not only Ayrshire but the whole country. There is a trend for banks to make closures, particularly in countryside areas. People are left to their own devices, with no way of getting money, their giro cheques or other services. This is a national issue. This is the thank you that the public get for bailing the banks out in the first place.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on the real source of the anger: people’s sense of abandonment and being left to their own devices with no other facilities on which to rely, despite the fact that the bank exists because the taxpayer made sure that it did.

[Patricia Gibson]

Indeed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, which go to the heart of the issue of financial inclusion, social exclusion and digital exclusion. These things have to be worked out together in some kind of organised fashion.

At one point in its history, RBS championed vowing not to close the last bank in town, but now it is twisting itself into all sorts of shapes to dissociate itself from that promise. I suppose the PR men for RBS found the appeal of that vow attractive, but now it seems that RBS is embarrassed by it and is no longer holding to it. We have heard a little tonight about banking online. We hear about this a lot, and I accept, as we all do, that many people now choose to bank online. There is no dispute about that. If it suits the lifestyle and needs of those who choose to bank online, good luck to them, but many do not bank online, for a variety of reasons. As the hon. Gentleman said, many choose not to do so because they are digitally excluded; this is a choice that they are not able to make.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The hon. Lady raised a very interesting point, because there is an issue with broadband, particularly in the countryside. A lot of people have problems with BT and broadband, and that denies people the opportunity to go online, if they so wish.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. The banks talk about online banking as though it is a choice, but for many people it is not a choice, as they are digitally excluded. Many people may not be digitally excluded but may simply decide that online banking is not for them, for whatever reason. For the record, I put myself in that category, as I choose not to bank online. The point is that it should be up to the customer to choose how and when they bank, and it is not up to the banks to make that decision for us. But what we have now is a situation where the banks have decided, most cynically, that those of us who have chosen not to bank online must be herded into that particular pen, despite our will.

HMRC Staff: Dudley

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

I completely agree. It is not party political knockabout to say that the introduction of universal credit is clearly not going according to plan. It has obviously hit some wrinkles along the road—that is a charitable way of putting it—and it is an odd decision to get rid of staff when we do not know how difficult it is going to be to properly introduce the new benefit.

The new regional centre for the west midlands will be in Birmingham. That led to the closure of the Walsall office in 2016, while the Worcester office is due to close next year and the Wolverhampton, Coventry and Solihull offices are due to close in 2020 or 2021.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I held a public meeting in Coventry at the end of January. There is a lot of concern because 300 jobs will go from the local tax office and people will either have to travel to Birmingham, or use a phone line, which is not always adequate for their needs. Does my hon. Friend agree that a halt should be called to this?

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is completely right. Everybody knows how hard he fights for jobs in Coventry and that it cannot afford to lose those jobs, just like the Black country cannot afford to lose the ones in Dudley. The city council passed a motion unanimously, probably in no small part due to his campaigning.

It was announced that the Dudley office at the Waterfront and Merry Hill would be taken on by the Department for Work and Pensions, and that staff would transfer to that Department; a small number of staff would have transferred to the Birmingham office. Staff at that office employed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to work on tax credits were told in 2015 that they would be transferred to the DWP to work on the introduction and implementation of universal credit. As recently as last October, they were told that they would remain at the Waterfront offices to work on the new benefit. Instead, at the end of January it was announced that the Government had changed their mind, that their jobs were at risk and that the office would close. That came as a huge shock to the hard-working, highly skilled and loyal staff. On the same day, DWP announced up to 150 job vacancies at the Waterfront site. Inquiries have been made and they are fixed-term appointments, although local discussions have revealed that they could become permanent. The announcement had little detail and more was promised, we were told, in April 2018.

It was originally envisaged that the Birmingham regional centre would have a capacity of about 3,200 full-time equivalent staff, but when the site of the Birmingham office was announced in October, that figure was reduced to 2,600. No official reason has been given for that, but sources are very clear that it is based on the high costs of premises in Birmingham. The figure of 2,600 did not include the Merry Hill staff, because they were due to go to DWP.

We have discussed the situation in Coventry, where hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), have been campaigning. The same is true in Wolverhampton, where MPs also want their HMRC office to stay open. It has 300 staff and the local council also supports the campaign. Discussions have opened with Andy Street, the West Midlands Mayor, based on the combined authority agreement, which was signed by the then Chancellor with all of the West Midlands combined authority councils, and which uniquely states that there should be a regional Government hub in Birmingham and sub-regional hubs elsewhere in the region.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

I have listed five or six of the 75 measures I mentioned, all of which have been taken since 2010. That is no accident. There is a causal link, not just a correlation, between those actions and the additional amounts of tax being collected.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I was late for the beginning of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He has given us a litany of what Conservative Governments have done over the past seven years. The Conservative Government before the previous Labour Government did not do very much about all the loopholes that he has listed.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

Absolutely, and that is the spirit in which the comments made by the vast array of trade organisations and businesses that are seeking to engage in the process should be interpreted. They are giving us notice of the issues that they believe we need to get right for their sectors. That does not mean that there is a concern that we will not get those things right, but they are right to flag up the things that we have to get right.

I was particularly pleased to hear the Financial Secretary say in his opening remarks that the Government intend to establish a system of frictionless trade at our major ports and other major places of trade with the EU. That is very important for my constituency in Kent, just as it is incredibly important for Northern Ireland. We need to ensure that trade can flow freely.

Ministers from the Department for International Trade will be working hard not only to put in place good trade deals that continue the free trade agreements we currently have with other countries as a consequence of our membership of the EU, but to negotiate trade agreements with other countries around the world. Such agreements will be incredibly important for our future success, but there is something about trade that is rather inevitable: countries tend to trade a lot with other countries to which they are near, because the cost of such trade is obviously far lower. There is a reason why we trade more with Belgium than with Brazil—although I wish we could trade more with Brazil—and that is that Belgium is very nearby. The cross-channel routes and the routes across the border in Northern Ireland are fundamental for our economic success. That is where frictionless trade really matters so that people can move their goods quickly and speedily. In many businesses, particularly those that work in food or with cut flowers and other perishable goods, the quick, “just in time” movement of goods is vital. Businesses on both sides of those borders will be affected equally.

I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) talk about the initiative he will be undertaking with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) to bring a Wrightbus down to London. I visited the Wrightbus factory in Ballymena, where the company makes a fantastic product that has become an icon of the London streets. Although the Wrightbus Boris buses do not operate on continental Europe, I urge my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman to continue their journey down to my constituency and through the channel tunnel, because it is so important to maintain the flows of trade not only between the countries of the UK but between the UK and continental Europe. A third of the trade of Warrenpoint port in Northern Ireland runs from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, into mainland UK and on to continental Europe. We need to keep trade running frictionlessly through all those points.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

People could not disagree with a lot of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but in the real world at some point we are going to face tariffs, whether it is outside his constituency, on continental Europe or around the rest of the world. If we want a clue about that, we should look at the recent actions of Donald Trump’s Administration in relation to Bombardier. Food supply chains could also be threatened.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Manufacturing is such an important part of the economy of Coventry, where his constituency is. Tariffs are important. Of course, we want a free trading environment among the countries with which we trade, not only in Europe but around the world. I looked back at one of Margaret Thatcher’s speeches—I am sure the hon. Gentleman is just as keen a student of those speeches as I am—to see how she made the case for the single market to businesses before it was created. She rightly highlighted that, although trade without tariffs is obviously important, what is much more important is getting rid of artificial barriers to trade, such as the restriction of goods from markets because they are not seen to comply with certain standards or the creation of artificial delays that can make trade in goods that need to be moved quickly uneconomic. It is just as important to get trading agreements and the flow of trade right as it is to get the tariff situation right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me start by commending the work of the Manufacturing Trade Remedies Alliance, an organisation that is being serviced in a secretariat format by the Ceramics Confederation in my constituency. Working with a number of other trade bodies and trade unions, it has put together comprehensive work to try to make the Bill better. It is not seeking to torpedo the Bill, or to say that the status quo is what we should have. It has genuinely tried to engage to highlight the practical problems with the Bill and to propose solutions that it knows, both as workers and as employers, will benefit its manufacturing industry. I just wanted to put that on the record.

I wish to commend the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for her speech, which covered, although in some depth, a number of quite technical points. This is where we are getting to in the Brexit negotiations: the time of painting in primary colours has almost gone, and we are now talking about the individual details that mean so much to our constituents. In my constituency, in Stoke-on-Trent, in the heart of the potteries, no more broadly will the impact of trade remedies and a proper customs arrangement be felt than in the ceramics industry.

In my constituency, around 5,000 jobs are directly related to manufacturing. Across the city, there are 15,000 such jobs, and even more when we tie in the supply chains and support services that make those industries flourish. Madam Deputy Speaker, if you go to any decent hotel around the world, to our own Tea Room, or to any high-class restaurant and turn over the plate, you will undoubtedly see, stamped with pride on the back of that piece of ceramic, “Made in Stoke-on-Trent” by Steelite, Churchill or Dudson. Those companies have been an ambassador for British business around the world for many years.

Only today in our local newspaper, The Sentinel, Jon Cameron from Steelite noted that 75% of every product that he makes is exported around the world. Therefore, the free trade arrangements that we have around the world, some of which are secured through the European Union, are important because they are about jobs in our constituency and jobs in our city. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) asked about South Korea. South Korea is one of the largest emerging markets for British ceramics in the world, and we are increasingly selling it more and more tableware and tiles than anywhere else. It is important that we recognise that countries that may seem obscure for some parts of the broader trade arrangements have huge impacts on smaller manufacturing areas where exports are becoming an increasingly important part of what we do.

What I wish to focus on today is the arrangements for market trade remedies. At the moment, the ceramics industry has a certain level of protection via the EU’s market protection arrangements, which affect tableware and tiles. Both are being looked at right now. They are being renewed through the European Parliament, so they are being scrutinised and looked at. The intention is that, where we know that there are market distortions caused by non-market economy countries such as China and Russia, the playing field is levelled.

We talk about free trade, but we should also be talking about fair trade. It is not fair on British manufacturing if Chinese companies are able to produce below-market value, cheap, low-quality tableware, import it into the UK, undermine the local manufacturing base and then distort the market and get away with it. Such practices cause job losses in Stoke-on-Trent and do serious long-term damage to the local market and the local industry. They also mean that, essentially, we are handing over domestic production to Chinese companies. What happens then? Once those companies have driven local producers out of the market, they put up their own prices, and suddenly there is no alternative. The next time I go on holiday, I do not want to turn over my plate and see that it is not made in Stoke-on-Trent. For me, that would be a symbol that we have got it wrong in terms of how we approach British manufacturing.

One in seven of the jobs in my constituency is linked to manufacturing, so making sure that we have those correct protections in place is vital. Across my neighbouring constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North and in Kidsgrove, nearly 19% of the workforce are involved in manufacturing. There are still parts of our country where manufacturing is the fundamental base of the work that we do. Making sure that we have those correct protections in place is vital to ensuring that we still have a manufacturing base that we are proud of in Britain.

Under schedule 4, the Bill will provide a number of mechanisms for the Manufacturing Trade Remedies Alliance, but, unfortunately, they are lacking. This is not a political point; it is a point of fact. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen North pointed out, they do not include a system for how we calculate injury from non-market economy countries. They do not point out how we calculate injury. The Bill commits us to the mandatory lesser duty rule, which is something that the EU is moving away from. It is looking at a conditional lesser duty rule.

The lesser duty rule basically says that, if we can demonstrate that there is injury to our market because of subsidy by a non-market economy country’s activities, we will only seek to remedy the lesser of those two injuries. We may still have goods being imported into our country below market value, distorting our market in a way that is unfair and we will be happy to accept that because it is the lesser of the two duties. That is fundamentally wrong. It is something that the EU is moving away from. We could easily have adopted the wording that was chosen by the EU and put it into the Bill, because it was supported by this Government in the European Council and by our MEPs across the piece.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

This is not necessarily on ceramics, but when it comes to research and development for industry, the United States uses the defence budget. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is what we are up against if we pull out of the single market?

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend is trying to tempt me down a particular course of discussion around single market membership, which I do not really wish to address as part of the Bill, but I do understand his point. In this Bill, not only do we have a set of Trade Remedies Authority procedures that are not particularly well defined and an attempt to wed ourselves to a mandatory lesser duty rule, we are also seeking to include an economic interest test—again, something that very few countries use. The only time we would see either a public interest test or an economic interest test is when we have multinational organisations such as the EU. We will not be in that position, yet we will be wedding ourselves to an extra layer of bureaucracy and complication to our trade remedy process that does not necessarily give the best outcome for British industry.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of the areas where this Parliament and this House should have some right of scrutiny, but where that is being brushed aside. This will all be done through written ministerial guidance, secondary legislation and statutory instruments. There is nothing in the Bill that immediately gives this House and all Members present the opportunity to properly define what we want to see regarding market and trade remedies.

There are a number of matters, which I am sure will come up during Second Reading of the Trade Bill tomorrow, that relate to the membership of the Trade Remedies Authority, the way in which it will be run and its budget. There are also questions around the cost of the investigations and who will be responsible for that cost. In the EU process at the moment, the trade itself makes up a good proportion of the cost, but it does so knowing that whatever remedy it gets out will more than offset the cost of the remedy process. There is no guarantee that that is the case for whatever system we set up once we are outside the customs union and the single market. That could simply result in a situation where industry does not take the risk—where it does not want to put the funding in place to do the investigation and to work out the dumping and injury levels because it does not know what they will look like beforehand. Therefore, any remedy would be of no benefit to the industry once it has made up those initial costs, so it simply will not do it. We will have a situation where we are not able to protect British industry and British business because the system is complicated and opaque.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is no longer in his place, but he has agreed to meet the British Ceramic Confederation to talk about some of the issues I have raised. I am grateful to him for doing so, and I hope that he will hear sense in the comments made this evening. When we leave the EU and come out of the customs union and the single market, there are a number of things that we can do to strengthen British business, put us in a better position and demonstrate to the world that Britain is still a manufacturing nation. We still make things. Nowhere is that more evident than in Stoke-on-Trent, where we make things and sell things of great beauty and high art around the world. We can continue do that, but only if we put the protections in place. Once we are outside the EU, we will have the freedoms and flexibilities to put in place the protections we want.

Having read this Bill, I fear that the Government are trying to come up with the lowest level of protection that they possibly can, which is of interest economically to only a few groups of people and whereby the Minister himself would have the ability to override future decisions. Therefore, I support the reasoned amendment; I hope that the Government have heard my comments; and I look forward to scrutinising this legislation further.