Leaving the EU: Customs Arrangements

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered customs arrangements after the UK leaves the EU.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Streeter. I am particularly grateful to have been selected to lead this debate. I led a debate on the European Free Trade Association and the European economic area in February, which I believe has brought that argument and some of the arguments around it to the fore. I see this debate as very much part of an evolving evaluation of the necessary arrangements that our country will need to put in place to secure free trade with the European Union and the rest of the world post March 2019.

This debate on customs arrangements follows and builds on what I was saying in February, because in my view, EEA-EFTA takes us some way towards achieving the aim of frictionless trade with the European Union post-Brexit, but without the satisfactory customs arrangements there will still be barriers to prevent our achieving that. That has been demonstrated to anyone who has spoken to the Norwegians and the Swedes, the Americans and the Canadians, and the Swiss. Anyone who suggests that those borders operate frictionlessly at the moment would be under a misapprehension.

I recognise, as I said to one or two colleagues as I wandered in, that today’s debate takes place in a vacuum. On Friday, the Government announced their ambition, which I welcome, for an EU-UK free trade area for goods, with a common rulebook and a labour mobility framework. The vacuum on the other side is that we are yet to see the much-awaited White Paper. I hope the Minister will confirm, despite all the rumours that have been swilling around this morning, that the White Paper will be published on Thursday.

I want to concentrate on those customs arrangements. Much of the debate about our post-Brexit customs arrangements has been about style over substance. Whether it is “the” or “a” customs union, max fac, new customs partnership or a facilitated customs arrangement, frankly, I do not care what it is called. As far as I am concerned, it can be called anything you like. The test must be whether the customs arrangements that we put in place protect jobs and businesses, avoid a hard border in Ireland, allow for frictionless trade and reflect the realities of the ports of our country. That is why I have always supported the Prime Minister’s customs plan as stated in the Lancaster House speech, in which, I remind colleagues, she said:

“Whether that means we must reach a completely new customs agreement, become an associate member of the Customs Union in some way, or remain a signatory to some elements of it, I hold no preconceived position. I have an open mind on how we do it. It is not the means that matter, but the ends.”

That is clearly true. It is not the means that matter, but the end.

The risks facing businesses, if we do not get this right, are clear. First, and overwhelmingly, in terms of customs, there is “rules of origin” risk and the requirements that places on trade. Those are most significant for exporters, if we do not come up with a satisfactory solution. The rules of origin requirements prove the country of origin for a product and they are essential for qualifying for lower tariffs. They are established to ensure that a finished good, and anything going into it from the supply chain, comes from the area that it is stated to have come from. Only then will it qualify to move across the border, and qualify for the tariff regime that is established for it. They are also needed to ensure that tariffs are not avoided by shipping goods through a country with a lower tariff, which could undermine the tariff regime.

When it comes to exporting food, proving origin can be quite simple: it is either grown in a country or it is not; but when it comes to the export of cars, for example, it is extraordinarily complex. The composition of each nut and bolt needs to be assessed, to ensure that enough of the car’s origin allows it to qualify for the lower tariffs. That affects not only the car industry, but pretty much any industry with a complex supply chain.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

That is even more the case with aircraft wings. The Airbus plants in north-east Wales have a central part in the Welsh economy. Components cross EU internal borders several times before finally being assembled. The danger is extreme to our local economy, as well as our participation in the wider project.

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right and he guesses my next point. I was about to say that rules of origin should not be underestimated or lightly dismissed with the usual line that these issues were not a problem before we joined the EU, or by the extraordinary assertion—heard last week—that manufacturers would somehow be able to get cheaper components from somewhere else in the world. To return to my fabled car, in the 1970s, before we joined the European Union—or the European Economic Community, as it was then—a car made in the west midlands had its supply chain solely from that area. Now, as the hon. Gentleman is rightly pointing out about aircraft wings—it is true for cars, too—that supply chain has sources all over Europe and will usually see multiple cross-border movements before it is completed.

The suggestion that cheaper components could be sourced from anywhere else in the world betrays a fundamental lack of knowledge of the integrated nature of manufacturing in the 21st-century world. The response to someone making those assertions can only be, “Get real!” Moreover, the significance of this burden is shown by the previous Government’s balance of competence review into the EU, which highlighted that the costs associated with rules of origin ranged from 4% to 15% of the value of trade. That is why the chief executive of the Chemical Industries Association told the House of Lords Committee that rules of origin add a “substantial level of bureaucracy” as

“the cost of providing the technical proof that a chemical or any other manufactured product originates from the EU or the UK, bearing in mind that”—

particularly for chemicals—

“there could be several stages of synthesis involved”,

would

“clearly outweigh the benefit of duty-free”

or tariff-free sales.

Currently, exporters need to fill out one form, at most, for VAT purposes. If we do not come to a satisfactory arrangement, exporters would need to fill out more paperwork. Furthermore, the UK could use access to the EU databases and the e-customs systems, which make this processing even easier.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

It is clear from the motor manufacturers’ association that Honda, for example, has 3.5 million parts per day coming in for its just-in-time manufacturing. One of the complications of these highly integrated supply chains is that we cannot roll over our existing free trade agreements, precisely because of the limits on rules of origin and the ways that those would apply. We cannot manufacture a car now to have the amount of British components that would allow us to roll those free trade agreements over.

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the example that she gives—the car industry. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has given us clear evidence on this, as well, in terms of the extra bureaucracy. It estimates that 180,000 exporters will now need to make a customs declaration for the first time, having not needed to do so previously. That is in addition to the 141,000 exporters that currently make a declaration for trade outside the EU. That extra bureaucracy is roughly in the small amount of £4 billion a year. Anyone who thinks that is a price worth paying, with the cost being put on industry, should think again.

Some have said that this is a price worth paying to pursue free trade agreements with new markets—markets that will bring us huge new rewards—but the supply chains that will be impacted by these new barriers cannot simply be removed from the EU market and integrated into a new market. They have taken decades to build up and are facilitated by free trade in the EU. By most conventional expectations, it would take further decades for EU exporters to embed themselves in new markets and new supply chains.

The extra requirements would also require physical infrastructure at borders to deal with customs processes. Currently, few checks are required on EU goods at ports, so ports have customs infrastructure in place to deal with non-EU imports only. Given that less than 1% of the lorries arriving through the port of Dover or the channel tunnel require customs checks, there is very little infrastructure, and there is no reason for there to be more.

That is also true on the other side. When representatives from the port of Calais came to speak to the Treasury Committee, they made the point that they have so far made no investment in infrastructure. Whether they will be able to deal with the new customs arrangements by the end of the implementation period without more infrastructure being put in place, or indeed without substantial delays at the port, is not only open to question, but evidence to the Select Committee proved it to be so.

The port of Dover estimates that even a two-minute delay in customs processing would lead to a 17-mile queue from Dover. Even short delays would have an impact on the just-in-time production lines that my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) mentioned, with costs compounding each time a component crosses from the EU to the UK or vice versa. As I said earlier, in the car process, that usually happens between three and four times.

[Hywel Williams]

A great deal of attention has been paid to Dover and Calais and the east-west, north-south routes, but much less has been paid to the Dublin-Holyhead route, although Holyhead is the second-busiest roll-on roll-off port in the United Kingdom. In the Exiting the European Union Committee, when I asked the now former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), what consideration had been given to Holyhead, he said that none had been given. That was some time ago. I asked the Secretary of State for Wales when he had last visited Holyhead, and he said it was in April 2017. Does the hon. Gentleman share my despair that that route has not received the attention that it requires?

[Stephen Hammond]

Again the hon. Gentleman guesses what I was about to say next. I was using the ports of Dover and Calais as examples of ports across the United Kingdom. Of course, it would also require restrictions and a border infrastructure to be in place between the two ports he mentions.

Over the last few years, some people have called that project fear, but the reality is that we are facing risks to our economy and to people’s jobs. In the last two weeks, businesses such as Airbus and Jaguar Land Rover have been increasingly vocal about these events and the risks. A recent Institute of Directors poll found that business leaders want a post-Brexit customs arrangement that avoids the new customs processes and maximises EU market access by minimising regulatory divergence. Warnings from big employers and investors in the UK should not be ignored, and certainly not by a Government who are committed to protecting jobs and enhancing employment opportunities.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

On that point, it is important for everyone to recognise that although big businesses can be noisy and have press contacts, the way that business filters through like a food chain means that they provide work for medium-sized businesses, who provide work for small businesses. As a country, we would be completely foolish to risk fundamentally changing the way we deal with our existing EU customers without having a clue about what the new customers in the rest of the world might want. We have to find a way to preserve frictionless trade with our existing customers if we want to protect our economy.

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. The supply chain provides jobs in all sorts of areas across the country. It is not just the big employers, but the thousands of people who are employed in their supply chain. For a small firm, the bureaucracy of restrictions such as rules of origin requirements and certificates, will be so extreme that some of them are likely to go out of business. We need to realise that.

We need a solution to those problems that protects jobs and businesses, that reflects the realities at ports, that avoids a border in Ireland and that can be fully enforced by the end of the implementation period. It is no good just relying on the technology being there, because at the moment it does not exist or it has never been tested on anything like that scale.

I am not sure that I am in universal agreement with all hon. Members, but I welcome the Chequers plan as a sensible proposal. As with everything, it will be in the detail, and as I said earlier, we are in a slight vacuum at the moment because the White Paper’s timely publication will be important, but it is not yet with us. One ambiguous area is the suggestion that maintaining frictionless trade with the EU will limit our ability to pursue new free trade deals. I will leave it to the Minister to explain exactly how those proposals will ensure that we can keep the option of free trade open.

The Government’s proposal is a welcome step towards at least recognising the economic reality that will hit us. I do not want to say that the debate has secured all the answers yet, because we will have the White Paper, but I will say that the Brexit debate has not yet faced up to some of the inevitable trade-offs between different rules around the world. If barriers are removed somewhere, they will almost certainly be put up somewhere else. That is the consequence.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about inevitable trade-offs across the world. Up to now, we have talked about the UK’s fluidity in terms of trading with the EU and beyond, but does he agree that we must not lose sight of the massive political and trading changes that might take place in remaining EU countries such as Hungary, Poland, Germany and Austria after we have left?

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman may well be right. We cannot know what will happen. We can see tensions already and they may result in different outcomes. We have some certainty about various procedures with those nations because they are members of the EU, but we cannot have the same certainty with other countries that present that fated opportunity.

Whether we like it or not, our economy is extraordinarily and almost inextricably interlinked with the EU’s, with manufacturers benefiting from the complex supply chains. If we were to put up barriers between the UK and the EU by leaving the single market, or by having no comprehensive customs arrangement, we would have to be sure that any new trade deal could make up for putting those barriers in place.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Hammond]

A panoply of choice! I will give way to the hon. Lady and then the hon. Gentleman.

[Kirsty Blackman]

To return to the hon. Gentleman’s welcome of the Chequers plan, could he give more detail about that and how he thinks it will actually work? I have concerns that it may not be workable at all.

[Stephen Hammond]

As I have said several times, we do not know the detail, but we should welcome three things: first, that there is a plan, because we are a long way into the process; secondly, that it attempts to put in place a UK-EU free trade area; and thirdly, that there is a common rulebook. As I explained earlier, we cannot just solve the customs part; we need to solve the standards issue as well, because if we do not, we will not be able to trade the products that we want to trade even if we have the best customs arrangements.

None of us has yet seen any of the detail. Some of us will cautiously welcome the plan as a starting point for establishing a free trade area, and some of us will be a bit more positive. We have not yet seen the reaction from others, but I hope they realise that it is an opening offer from the Government that needs to be looked at sensibly.

[Paul Girvan]

This is a two-way traffic issue and there needs to be flexibility from Europe as well. The UK Government have made some movement in relation to what happened at Chequers and in showing willingness to accommodate, but that needs to be reciprocated by Europe. They can allow us to have that access to the open market in Europe.

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right, but I say to him, and I am sure that he will accept it, that until we actually put a proposition down to negotiate with, there was nothing to negotiate with. Until the Chequers proposal, it might well have been said by a number of our soon-to-be former EU partners that there actually was not a deal to negotiate on. There were the Prime Minister’s principles: no hard border in Ireland, frictionless trade and the ability to do free trade deals. Those are principles and there is nothing wrong with those principles, but they were not an executable plan. Until they were an executable plan, there was nothing to negotiate on.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Is it not also the case that if we are going to approach this negotiation, we have to look at it—as in any good negotiation—from the other side’s point of view? For the other side, the issue is that they are part of an international treaty that is underpinned by a rulebook. If we are going to ask them to adjust their rulebook to accommodate us, we will have to show that we can do that in a way that is likely to promote certainty for the future, and furthermore does not undermine their own cohesion.

[Stephen Hammond]

My right hon. and learned Friend is correct. I think that he has made the point several times in this place and in others that there has been a misunderstanding and a failure to comprehend exactly what the EU Commission is. It is a legal body that takes its instructions from others, and therefore its ability to deviate too much in those negotiations until its instructions are changed means that we have failed to understand how we should have been negotiating initially. Now that the plan is there, I am hopeful that we will see more progress.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my fellow south Londoner for giving way. I know this is a debate about customs, but my biggest issue with the Prime Minister’s proposals is that they do not cover most of the economy, which is services. On customs, however, I have a couple of questions.

First, does he know of any example of where the EU has allowed a third county to collect customs duties on its behalf? The hon. Gentleman has talked about the importance of the rules. Secondly, although I appreciate his comments welcoming the proposals, they are also based on “to be invented” technology to resolve the Irish border issue. Unless that technology is invented and can work, I do not see how it will be able to resolve that conundrum.

[Stephen Hammond]

I will deal with my fellow south Londoner’s latter point first. I agree with him on technology. There needs to be a system in place. We may move to a technological solution, but, as I said a few moments ago, it is clearly not there at the moment, or it has not been tested on this sort of scale yet.

Secondly, I do not know of any such example, and that will obviously be challenging to the rulebook, but that does not mean that we should not put the proposition forward and therefore I respect what the Government are trying to do in that regard.

As for services, which the hon. Gentleman was clearly talking about and is 80% of the UK’s exports and economy, my hope is—I am not sure whether the Minister will be able to say so today, but it is my hope—that the White Paper may give some hints about how the Government will put in place their enhanced equivalence regime, and the proposals for that, which the Chancellor mentioned in a speech at a different Mansion House event just recently. So I hope that we will hear some news on that in the near future.

Let me go back to the idea of free trade arrangements and free trade agreements. The Treasury Committee had the privilege of going to Washington in April and we met a number of American free trade or trade arrangement negotiators. Everybody I spoke to was excited about doing a deal with the United Kingdom, which is good news. Why were they so excited? Because they told us, frankly and openly, that they can dictate the terms they want, they will get whatever they want and any agreement will give their producers unfettered access to our markets.

We have to be careful, because no one is asking the right question. Of course people want to do deals with us; why would they not want to? The question is this: on what terms of trade will those deals be done? If someone can tell me the answer to that question, I will happily sit down and conclude my remarks now.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way? [Laughter.]

[Stephen Hammond]

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s expert intervention.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Presumably on terms that are mutually advantageous to both sides.

[Stephen Hammond]

Were that so, I would sit down now, but there is no indication from any of the negotiators to whom I have spoken that that is the case. I will not go into the lurid details of how exactly they have described the prospective arrangement, because this debate has far too genteel an audience. However, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there will clearly be areas of mutual advantage, but it is very clear that those terms of trade in the short term—they may change in the future—are likely to be less advantageous.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

In one moment. I just want to make this point, because it is pertinent to what the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) was saying. Free trade with the Commonwealth is a goal—an announced goal—for a number of the Brexiteers, but the key question again is this: on what terms will those deals be done?

The economic modelling done for the Whitehall papers shows that a free trade agreement with America would provide a UK GDP benefit of about 0.2%. That is because the average weighted tariff with America is only 2%. So if we get rid of all the tariffs with America, it would add 0.2% to our economy. If we reach agreements with China, India, Australia and New Zealand, of course they would add benefit to the economy—somewhere between 0.1% and 0.4%. I just ask Members to bear that in mind, given the scale and the benefit of the trade that we do with the European Union.

[David Simpson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he not agree that, in relation to trying to get a deal and to how we conduct the negotiations, the perception out there among the general public is that Europe keeps changing the goalposts and therefore we cannot get to a definitive position?

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly a learned man and I take his view that the great Shakespearean themes are perception and reality, and reality becomes perception and the other way round. But that is not true of course, and it is for those of us who are in this place to stand up and base our decisions on evidence, and to speak the truth. So it is absolutely clear to me that, as we need to protect jobs and businesses, and if we are ready to protect them as they are now, we do not need to sacrifice them for potential gains, if those gains look small and potentially unrealisable.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. On the point that he has just made, Michel Barnier gave evidence to the Brexit Committee last year and he said that there is a cultural difference here. He said, “Your side seems to think that this process is, ‘You give us a bit of that and we’ll give you bit of this’, whereas on the European Union’s side it is a matter of fitting our mutual desire for the most favourable terms into the rules that have been agreed by the UK Government over many years”, and until that difference in cultural perception changes we are not going to get very far.

[Stephen Hammond]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point; I hear him and I will look carefully at the Select Committee’s report on that point.

In concluding, I will make a few remarks to the Minister. I hope that he will be able to outline how the Government’s proposals will overcome the costly non-tariff barriers that I spent some time outlining and took a number of interventions about earlier. I also hope that he can reassure us about the steps the Government will take to ensure that the new customs arrangements will be fully ready and tested by the end of the implementation period. I would obviously like to be assured that the Government, and in particular the Department for Transport, have a plan to ensure that our ports and ports on the EU side will be ready for any changes.

Governments should always put the creation and protection of jobs and livelihoods first. While we are leaving the EU, we should not sacrifice people’s livelihoods. That is not what people voted for; whatever they voted for, they certainly did not vote for that. Therefore, it is important to listen to the voice of business.

As I have said, I drafted this speech on Friday and it has gone through one or two reiterations since, on the basis of what has happened, and it will probably go through another one when I see things on Thursday. Nevertheless, I welcome Friday’s agreement. Clearly, we should welcome the fact that it aims to remove the need for tariffs, customs checks and controls. It will be called a facilitated customs arrangement. I understand that the White Paper was going to be published on Thursday; perhaps the Minister might care to give us some detail on how a facilitated customs arrangement is intended to work.

I have taken a number of interventions because this is an extraordinarily important subject. It goes to the essence of what we need to put in place before we leave the European Union and why. Many of us would say that these issues should have been sorted a long time ago, but we are making a good start now. I hope that this debate will contribute to people’s understanding of some of the issues that this country’s businesses will face as we leave the European Union.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

When goods come in and the end-use cannot be determined, we foresee a situation where we might have to charge the higher tariff, with a rebate mechanism in place once the end-user can demonstrate that those goods have indeed been consumed, or found their end-use, in the United Kingdom. As I say, some of those matters will be addressed in the White Paper that will be with us this week.

Hon. Members have rightly mentioned supply chains and the importance of goods and components going in and out of the EU27. The points raised by the hon. Lady in the context of Nissan will be accommodated substantially by the model we are putting forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon mentioned VAT systems. We have made it clear that we are looking in the negotiations to ensure that we have the best of the arrangements that are there at the moment, in terms of systems and making our VAT interactions as smooth as possible, albeit we will look to control rates of VAT. In the recent Budget the Chancellor commented on the abolition of acquisition VAT and the move towards import VAT. We recognise that there are certain cash-flow impositions on the part of business that we will want to take into account.

A number of hon. Members rightly mentioned ports, and I think a couple specifically suggested that a two-minute delay could lead to a 17-mile tailback at Dover. We are, of course, extremely cognisant of that risk, but once again, it applies if we need border and customs arrangements in place at the port of Dover, Holyhead and the other ports that have been mentioned. Under this model, that would clearly not be the case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon also made a point about free trade deals and how the approach of the facilitated customs arrangement would facilitate them. Most importantly, as distinct from being in “the” customs union, or in a customs union with the customs union, we would not operate a common external tariff, so we would be free to set our own tariffs. The fact that we have a common rulebook between ourselves for goods and agricultural products means that the issue of regulatory barriers, which might otherwise be in place for us in doing FTAs and bringing goods into the UK that might then go on to the European Union, would also be substantially resolved.

[Stephen Hammond]

The Minister is obviously right in what he has just said about tariffs. Does he also accept that the rulebook and some of the standards in it are likely to restrict our ability to have free trade with certain countries if they do not meet those standards?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is right inasmuch as that is potentially the case if there are any inconsistencies—we might otherwise have varied our rules accordingly to accommodate an FTA. However, the Government have made it clear that although we will have total alignment at the start, we will not seek an arrangement where we will be unable to deviate from that in the future, albeit we recognise that there will be consequences for doing so.

A number of hon. Members raised the issue of preparedness, and I assure them that we will be in a good position and ready on day one if we have a no-deal situation. The Chancellor allocated £3 billion for Brexit preparations in the last Budget. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs received £46 million last year and around £250 million in this financial year. We have already recruited, or have in train the recruitment of, around 1,000 new staff going into HMRC with a focus on borders. We have said that we will move that figure up to between 3,000 and 5,000. Some Members mentioned the customs declaration system. The National Audit Office has suggested that we are broadly speaking where we need to be to ensure that that system comes online and live before March next year.

The hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) asked why the EU would allow us to collect EU tariffs when there are no such arrangements with any other trading partner. We are in a unique situation. We are a very large trading partner with the European Union. We have complete alignment at the moment in regulations with that market, so we start from a position that is not occupied by others.

I think I have gone through most of the points raised by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). I am grateful that she said that initially she broadly welcomed the proposals, and we should all do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) made the very important point that we are seeking an arrangement that can command the broad support of the British people—an arrangement that ensures that the UK and the EU have frictionless access to each other’s markets for goods; that provides regulatory flexibility in the way that I have described; that enables commitments to Northern Ireland to be met and the Good Friday agreement to be honoured; that sees us leave the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy; that allows us to deliver an independent trading policy; that ensures that, in future, all laws in the UK will be legislated for by our Parliament; that restores the supremacy of UK courts; and that ends the free movement of people and vast payments to the EU. The broad majority of people in our country will welcome that achievement.

I hope that, particularly in the debate on Monday, Parliament as a whole comes together. This is a moment in our history where there are undoubtedly significant opportunities, but also a number of challenges. I hope we see the debate through that prism, rather than through anything that is rather more narrow and party-political. On that note, Mr Streeter, I gladly give the Floor to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

Mr Streeter, you will be pleased to hear that my final words will not be as long as my starting words. Thank you for being in the Chair this afternoon. I think you will agree that, although we did not have as many contributions as we sometimes have in such debates, they were of exceptionally good quality. I thank all hon. Members for contributing.

The Minister said at the beginning that he had hoped that we would set out a little more ambitiously some of the potential opportunities that the Chequers plan will afford. Today, he has heard everybody welcome that plan, but some hon. Members set out some of the considerable risks if we do not achieve the ambitions in it. We are grateful to him for setting out in his 10 minutes some of those ambitions in a little more detail, because they overcome some of the issues if they are enacted. He is right to make that entreaty.

I hope that after we have seen the White Paper this week, we can all join the Minister next week in supporting the customs arrangement. However, there are significant issues about rules of origin and the cost of bureaucracy. I know he knows that, and I hope the Government keep it in mind as they move forward.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered customs arrangements after the UK leaves the EU.