Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robin Walker and Helen Goodman

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), mentioned Israel in this context earlier. It is true that Erasmus has a number of non-EU participants, and it is clear that the UK has ambitions to continue its cultural co-operation with the EU even after we have left.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

10. What recent discussions the Government have had with local authorities on contingency planning for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Statutory Obligations on Ministers

Debate between Robin Walker and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The Government will bring a vote before 21 January.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Yesterday we had a significant judgment from the European Court that opens up another option, so when the Minister tells the Attorney General that we want written advice, can the Attorney General take into account yesterday’s judgment in what he sends us?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robin Walker and Helen Goodman

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker]

I regularly attend the higher education and science working group chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, where we discuss these issues, and we have been feeding into the work being done by the Migration Advisory Committee and the Home Office on that front. The Prime Minister made it clear that we will want to continue to attract key talent from around the world, and Britain will want to continue to be a scientific superpower in the years to come. It is essential that we get our policies right on this.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Government’s own analysis shows that if we leave the customs union, unemployment in the north-east will go up to 200,000, so why did the Secretary of State argue against a customs partnership yesterday afternoon and what is he going to say to the 160,000 people who lose their jobs?

Leaving the EU: Implementation

Debate between Robin Walker and Helen Goodman

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

Yes, absolutely.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

On Friday afternoon, yet another north-east businessman came to see me worried about a cliff edge. Will the Minister now, once and for all, see off the middle-aged swivel-eyed men behind him and make it clear that, in the interests of British industry, he will negotiate a transition period in which British industrialists are on a level playing field with European industrialists?

[Mr Walker]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will join me in welcoming the fact that the Secretary of State delivered his speech on the implementation period, making it clear that we are seeking an implementation period in the north-east of England.

Exiting the EU: Science and Research

Debate between Robin Walker and Helen Goodman

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Members for Twickenham (Dr Mathias), who made an informed speech, and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), who made an excellent maiden speech.

The importance of science to Britain’s industrial revolution is well known: Newtonian physics, Faraday’s electrical magnetism, Jenner’s vaccination. These scientific advances were not simply great intellectual achievements; they also made a difference to the way of life of everybody in this country and across the entire world, and that is still true today.

The quality of our scientific research is not only valuable in itself; it also underpins our economic performance, standard of living and quality of life. It imbues our values as a civilised country, and it is what distinguishes us from our medieval forebears.

The leading clinical geneticist Professor Sir John Burn of Newcastle University, who was born in west Auckland, undertook research in 1990 testing aspirin across 68 countries and found that regular doses can reduce hereditary cancer risk. I asked him about the value of pan-EU collaboration; he said it makes things more effective, makes it easier to lure the best scientists on to projects and, despite the bureaucratic hurdles, it produces better results.

My constituency hosts a Glaxo plant. Sir Andrew Witty, the chief executive officer, tells me that the innovative medicines initiative, part of Horizon 2020, facilitates pre-competitive research into questions such as liver toxicity, which is far more economic to tackle at the EU level than it could ever be for an individual country. Currently, Glaxo does 30% of its R and D in the UK; it would be costly to move it, but in a worst case scenario that could happen.

Members have already spoken about the financial benefits to us of joining in the EU programme. A key aspect is that we are at the heart of shaping the research. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures is currently chaired by a British academic, as is the European Research Area Board. We also host EU facilities and headquarters. Does the Minister think that if we became merely an associated country, or a non-associated third country, we would still be leading the EU direction for this research?

Everyone values Horizon 2020, so I call on the Government to make continued membership of it and its successor programmes a key objective in the negotiating strategy for Brexit. In the Treasury Committee, the Chancellor confirmed he was guaranteeing projects that receive Horizon 2020 money beyond that period, but the Minister was not able to tell us in his opening speech how researchers can know their guarantees meet his two further tests. I hope his ministerial colleague can explain that to us in the winding up speeches.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)]

To save time in winding up, may I say now that the Treasury will underwrite all successful bids for Horizon 2020 that are approved by the Commission even when specific projects continue beyond departure? Government Departments will not assess Horizon 2020 grant applications; Horizon 2020 is an EU programme independent of the UK Government and grant funding is awarded by the Commission based on peer review. UK businesses and universities should continue to bid for those competitive EU funds while we remain a member.

[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased that the Minister has given that confirmation. It sounds as if the Chancellor is saying his criteria will be met by successful Horizon 2020 bidders.

Colleagues have spoken about the problems that will come if we lose freedom of movement—at best, discouraging European academics from working here; at worst, preventing people from coming at all. These people make up over 20% of teaching staff in some of the most crucial scientific subjects: physics, astronomy, mathematical sciences, biological sciences, chemistry and material sciences, and computer sciences. We cannot afford to lose them.

I will not repeat what colleagues have said and no doubt will continue to say, but it is vital that Ministers confirm the status of people who are in the country today. Furthermore, the Government should make it clear that they will seek a complete carve out for British and European academics post-Brexit so they can travel and work in each other’s universities.

The Government should commit to a shared post-Brexit regulatory structure so that researchers have a level playing field and minimised costs and can continue to run large population experiments in parallel across European countries. In essence this would be an open market in R and D post-Brexit.

We need to remember that scientific development is essentially a collaborative and co-operative part of human endeavour. It does not recognise national boundaries in the quest for truth. This is not a new idea. Writing to Robert Hooke in 1676, Isaac Newton said:

“What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much...If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

EU Customs Union

Debate between Robin Walker and Helen Goodman

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I think it important to engage with arguments on both sides of this debate. The key thing is to secure the UK national interest, so before we take a decision, we will want to listen very carefully to the arguments for leaving the customs union and the arguments for staying in it.

I think we can all agree that the issue has numerous aspects. The hon. Lady speaks with considerable experience of complex economic issues, having been a Treasury fast-streamer serving on the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Committee, and a former Minister. She will appreciate that, as the Prime Minister said in her reply the other day, making a full assessment of the options of a customs union is more complex than it might seem when first described to the public.

First, it is important to understand exactly what a customs union is and is not. It is an arrangement that relates to trade in goods; it does not cover trade in services or free movement of capital or people. To facilitate trade, a customs union removes tariffs and customs controls on goods moving between its members. While services are not directly included— they are not subject to either tariffs or customs controls—they have become increasingly embedded in goods production, so a customs union could indirectly affect trade in services industries. For example, in parallel to exporting an aircraft engine, an engineering firm might also provide maintenance services; or in parallel to exporting cars, an automotive firm might provide financial services.

To function properly, a customs union must have a common external tariff, applied equally by all members of the union. That supports the free circulation of goods within the customs union, preventing trade diversion by ensuring that no one trading with the members of the union can be given preferential access to any individual members relative to the others. In the case of the European Union, in practice, we have chosen to make a reality of the common external tariff through the common commercial policy under which the European Commission negotiates on trade on the United Kingdom’s behalf, and in that way sets the common external tariff. In the case of members of the EU and the EU’s customs union, 80% of the tariffs that are collected by member states on imports from non-EU countries are paid into the EU budget, with member states retaining just the remaining 20% to cover collection costs. The UK collected £3.1 billion in tariffs on non-EU imports in the financial year 2015-16.

However, a customs union is only one of the many ways in which countries have sought to minimise the impact of customs procedures and support the free flow of goods. There are numerous examples around the world in which co-operation between customs authorities has helped to reduce the costs of customs processes at the border, short of a customs union. Even in the case of the European Union, the customs union is only part of an approach that also focuses on strengthening systems and processes on the ground. For example, the vast majority of customs declarations in the UK are submitted electronically and cleared rapidly, with only a small proportion experiencing delays—for example, when risk assessment indicates that compliance or enforcement checks are required at the border.

Norway has been involved in customs co-operation with Sweden and Finland, both of which are EU member states and are therefore in the EU customs union, as they have been since the 1960s. Norway has an agreement with the EU to mutually recognise each other’s schemes to impose less onerous checks on exporting firms with secure supply chains. It sits, as an observer, on some of the EU’s committees that discuss customs issues. Notwithstanding the issues raised by the hon. Lady, and although our Prime Minister has made it clear that we are seeking not an off-the-shelf solution but a UK solution, it is important to note the collaborative agreements that exist in other countries. Switzerland and the EU have an agreement that recognises the equivalence of security checks at their external borders, and waives the need to make pre-departure and pre-arrival declarations. If we look more widely, we see that the United States and Canada also co-operate closely on customs issues, including schemes to expedite customs procedures for firms with secure supply chains and collaborative arrangements for operations at the border.

[Helen Goodman]

I am listening with interest to what the Minister is saying, but according to my constituents, who do a great deal of exporting, exporting to Switzerland is a nightmare by comparison with exporting to the EU, because of all the bureaucracy. Does the Minister not agree that the UK is in a different position from Norway? Its major export is oil, and exporting oil is incredibly simple, but, as I said earlier, most of the goods that we export are manufactured goods, which have complex supply chains.

[Mr Walker]

That is a fair point. I shall say something about our engagement with some of those industries and the importance of supply chains later in my speech. It is worth noting, however, that many countries also have authorised economic operator schemes, which means that exporters with supply chains that are demonstrably secure are subject to fewer and less stringent checks. The EU has such arrangements with China, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and the United States, through which both sides recognise each other’s authorised economic operators for customs purposes.

Turkey, which the hon. Lady mentioned, is one country outside the EU that has a customs union arrangement with it. That arrangement covers most but not all goods. Raw agricultural produce, for instance, is excluded. The EU and Turkey have been preparing to update the terms of their current customs union arrangements, which were always meant to be transitional, given that Turkey has applied to be a full member of the EU. I could go on, as there is a multiplicity of examples, but the point is that any decision about membership or otherwise is complex, and must take account of the full spectrum of options.

During last week’s debate, the Prime Minister also said that the way in which one dealt with the customs union did not involve a binary choice. There are different aspects to a customs union, which is precisely why it is important to look at the detail, to carry out the hard analysis that the hon. Lady called for, and to get the answer right. We have made it clear that we will pursue what works for the unique circumstances of the United Kingdom, and we continue to analyse thoroughly what it might look like in order to ensure that we make the best choice for the UK. That includes the broad-based analysis of more than 50 sectors that my Department is undertaking in relation to the impact of the UK’s leaving the EU.

As with the broader UK-EU negotiations, we recognise the need for a smooth transition that minimises disruption to our trading relationships and seizes the opportunities that are presented. The issue of a customs union has also been part of the Government’s programme of stakeholder engagement. We have been discussing this matter with numerous companies, organisations and trade bodies, including the chemicals sector, car manufacturers, and the agriculture and food and drink sector. We want to ensure that their views are reflected in our approach. The Prime Minister has been very clear that the intention of the Government is to ensure a competitive market so that people are able to prosper here in the United Kingdom and add to our economic growth.

We are also aware of the specific circumstances faced by businesses in Northern Ireland, which I know the hon. Lady could have touched on if she had not taken the interventions. We had a common travel area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland many years before either country was a member of the European Union. Nobody wants to return to the borders of the past. I underline the will and commitment of ourselves, the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to support the common travel area and to ensure that there are no hard borders. We must now work closely together to ensure that as the UK leaves the EU we find shared solutions to the challenges and maximise the opportunities for both the UK and the Republic of Ireland, which I expect will continue to be a close friend of the UK in years to come.

[Helen Goodman]

I am slightly nervous that the Minister might sit down before I ask him another question. He said his Department is looking at 50 sectors. My basic request tonight is that we should have more information and facts from the Department, so will he make a start by telling us which 50 sectors and how large they are, how much they export and how many people are employed in them?

[Mr Walker]

In the six minutes I have left, it would be a challenge to run through each of those 50 sectors, but we will certainly disclose that information in due course. It is important to emphasise this is a whole-Government effort. Our Department is engaging with those sectors and conducting the analysis and drawing it all together, but we are also working closely with colleagues at the Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and all the other relevant Departments to each sector of the economy, because it is important we get this right and there is a role for every part of Government in informing that process.