Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

The Opposition believe that, just as changes to tax are brought in in the form of a money Bill, so should changes to tariffs and customs duty. That is practical, reasonable and very responsible, if I may say so. We are not suggesting that there should be a vote every time that a tariff is raised or lowered; instead we envisage the Government regularly introducing to Parliament a list of changes for Members to scrutinise and vote on.

The alternative to a democratic and open process is the hoarding of power in the Treasury or the Department for International Trade, which alone will set the UK’s future customs tariffs. The workings and logic behind their decisions will be largely unknown, and hidden from the scrutiny of the House. That is the theme of our amendments with regard to the Select Committees. The Minister says that Select Committees will be able to bring the Minister in, question them and have a chat with them, but I am afraid that is not strong enough.

This is the biggest constitutional change we have had for as long as anyone can remember, and it is incumbent on us to ensure that when we have major shifts in power between the Executive and the Commons, we can challenge them. I think a confident Government would acknowledge that. I would not use the word “concede”, but I think a Government, who were confident in their own abilities—

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Strong and stable.

[Peter Dowd]

I refuse to use the phrase “strong and stable”, but if the Government had confidence in their policies, they would not shy away, in any way, from the proposals that we have set out. I am interested to hear what the Minister says about them. In the oral evidence sessions, several witnesses expressed concern, and were reluctant to agree that the lines of communication between businesses, between organisations, between agencies and so on were conducive to getting a proper hearing. I think Members most probably got that message from the witnesses. Communication lines are there, but in a sense no one is at home; that is certainly the perception that I got.

Customs tariffs will be unamendable and unchangeable except, in effect, at the whims of the Chancellor and a Trade Secretary. It may well be that those individual Ministers are very open to dialogue and persuasion, and are in listening mode. Then again, they might not be, and this Parliament has always challenged the whim of whoever might be in power. [Interruption.]

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[Mel Stride]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I thank the hon. Member for Bootle for his remarks. His usual brilliance was enhanced by an unknown quality of being able to summon dramatic music to enhance his comments. He gets better and better, the longer we hear from him.

The hon. Gentleman raised various general points, including the fact that this is, in effect, a Finance Bill and therefore will not be amended in the House of Lords. There are good reasons for that. There is a very, very long tradition for Bills that relate substantially to tax and the rating of charges to be handled in that way—both by this Government and by Labour, when it was in government.

[Nic Dakin]

But the Bill does go into the House of Lords, and I am sure that the Government will be listening carefully to what their lordships say.

[Mel Stride]

The Government of course listen to everybody who has an opinion—or, should I say, a relevant opinion; a rational opinion, even—on the matter in hand, and we will continue to do so.

The hon. Member for Bootle raised the obvious and important point that with Brexit in the round, we are looking at a big constitutional change—I think that was the expression he used—which is undoubtedly true. However, he seized on that known fact to suggest that in the narrow case of the change in the duties on specific goods, we should therefore have a highly augmented level of scrutiny. I do not think that the two things are linked. The Bill deals narrowly with duties, and more robust scrutiny is suggested through the affirmative statutory instruments for the first introduction of the tariff and for all duties that are changed in an upward direction afterwards. He stated that there will be a huge change, but the Bill’s purpose is to narrow down that change wherever we can, not least regarding our tariff arrangements.

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As far as we are concerned, as we leave the European Union and undertake free trade agreements with countries all over the world, we want to avoid situations where arrangements do not work—a situation that could see the UK Government negotiate a free trade agreement with America, with part of the agreement being a preferential rate being given to US machine parts entering the UK. While the Treasury may see the economic benefits of businesses being able to access cheaper machine parts, in that scenario it does not take the consideration of UK machine part suppliers into account. The UK machine part suppliers are then undercut by the flooding of cheap machine parts from the US. That in turn would lead to job losses, and the loss of a whole industry and all the knowledge and skills that go with it. We have seen so much of that over the past three decades, and the Bill potentially makes the situation worse.

[Nic Dakin]

Does my hon. Friend think that, in line with the Government’s industrial strategy, it would be a missed opportunity if we end up hollowing out UK industry in the way that he describes, rather than securing its future as we all wish to do?

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. There is a danger that we are walking into this with a bit of a fuzz around us. We just do not know the impact this will have on us. If the Government do not get it right, as in spot-on, it is potentially very dangerous for our industries. That is why we are concerned, which is another of our themes in relation to the Bill: one is about democratic accountability, and the other is about how the Bill will protect our vital industries, from manufacturing right the way through the whole ream.

The scenario I referred to earlier is far from absurd and reflects the reality that, when it comes to negotiating and signing free trade agreements, there are always winners and losers, particularly when negotiating with countries that are larger both in population and economic size.

The free trade agreement negotiated between Australia and the United States in 2004 was negotiated in a relatively quick period, and it was so bad that officials refused to recommend it to the Australian Parliament. John Howard, the then Prime Minister, was forced into signing it by President George W. Bush, who essentially reminded him of the close security collaboration between the two countries. After signing, John Howard was often and repeatedly chided by political opponents who would shout, “Where’s the beef?”—a reference to the failure of the free trade agreement to stimulate beef exports for Australia.

We do not want to be in that situation. The UK could easily find itself in a similar scenario whereby we will offer preferential rates to the USA or China, with little in return. In November, we had Wilbur Ross, the US Commerce Secretary, saying that the UK retaining EU regulations on chemicals, genetically modified crops and food safety would represent “landmines” for a potential deal. The Secretary of State for International Trade is reported to have given him private assurances that this would not be a problem.

Stakeholders could find themselves shut out of the process. The Opposition’s concerns are not scaremongering, particularly when we have a Secretary of State who has already made it clear that he supports a race to the bottom, with cheaper consumer goods and weaker regulations and standards. Again, our witnesses spoke about how it is not consumer against producer—the two are almost interchangeable. If we look at the trade remedies outlined in the Bill, we see the Government have ensured there is a clear economic interest test for the Treasury to follow that does not consider the interests of UK manufacturers or key industries, which is unique among most World Trade Organisation countries.

If this Bill and the Trade Bill remain unamended, the Treasury will have to take the advice only of the Secretary of State in that regard, but it will receive a recommendation from a Trade Remedies Authority that will be appointed by the Secretary of State and no doubt made up only of people he trusts—that does not mean that anyone else does—unless its composition is amended in the Trade Bill. We saw that only yesterday, with a vote in the House of Commons in relation to the Electoral Commission. Parliament is entitled to express a view on such appointments, but in this case I do not think we will get that capacity. It certainly does not seem to be in the Bill. Key stakeholders will therefore bear the brunt of any changes to tariffs and again effectively be shut out of the process.

Those key stakeholders will be at the mercy of a Secretary of State who appears to be desperately attempting to negotiate free trade agreements at any cost and potentially to pay a price that most of us would not be prepared to pay. If hon. Members do not have the ability to challenge it, the Treasury will also have a free hand to introduce regulations that will set the framework for the lowering of tariffs which, if we are not careful, will change the UK economy as we know it. I exhort the Committee to think carefully on the proposals in the Bill and to take into account what we say in our new clause.