Trade Bill

Debate between Viscount Ridley and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am not convinced of the merit of this amendment. Actually, I have taken comfort from the words of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, on the detailed arguments. I know from my experience of operating in Turkey—both with retail outlets and as a source of agricultural, clothing and electronic goods for shops in other member states and in the UK—that it is not an entirely happy situation to be in a customs union and not in the European Union or a single market.

Turkey was at the time keen to get into the European Union properly, partly because of the problems that the arrangements caused. It is very frustrating not to have influence over the tariffs and rules at the border of your country. Essentially, you are a rule-taker, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, acknowledged. I also recall the lorry delays that he mentioned—so not very frictionless. My recollection is that the rules on the common external tariff also restricted Turkey’s ability to renegotiate independent trade agreements with third countries. That is something that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, acknowledged. If we go down the road proposed in the amendment, we could be caught up in the EU system of protectionism—which, sadly, I expect to increase without the UK at the table.

On a brighter note, I was glad to see this afternoon that Dr Fox, the International Trade Secretary, had agreed in principle to a UK-Israel agreement—so he has been busy in Switzerland. Rather than going down the road of the amendment, I would prefer one last push to negotiate a good deal with the EU. There is more to do, but we should keep trying, especially on the backstop. Some parts of the Government have clearly not given up, as we heard in the EU Committee today from the Secretary of State, Steve Barclay, which is why, of course, I am afraid I missed some of today’s proceedings.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, to be brief, as some others have put it, and with the greatest of respect, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, would put it, perhaps I might probe the Labour Party’s position on this. I used to hear members of the Labour Party, including many of those on the Front Bench in another place, make the argument that the problem with a customs union was that it hurt developing countries because of the external tariff. I would like to know what has happened to the argument and why we do not hear it from the Labour Party any more.